Manpower bureau fails to deliver service, discipline fraudulent agencies
The Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), the only place for cheated migrant workers to seek redress, is continuously failing to deliver the goods to the victims whose lives are devastated in shoddy immigration process.
Taking advantage of weak rules and their loose enforcement by the bureau, a number of manpower recruiting agencies found responsible for cheating and harassing Bangladeshi workers abroad have been refusing to compensate the victims for nearly two years, ignoring repeated government orders.
At times the agencies pay the deceived workers a lump sum, which is much less than the amount settled by the BMET. The Daily Star has documents of at least 34 victims denied justice, rather harassed and humiliated.
There is at least one case in which the expatriates’ welfare ministry cancelled licence of an agency, Golden Arrow Ltd, for ignoring government order for over two years in compensating 11 victims. This time the ministry asked the BMET to compensate the workers with the agency’s security money.
But the BMET itself ignored the ministry order which fined Tk 84,000 to the agency at fault for each victim. The fine never matched the victims’ lost time, effort and hard-earned cash of around Tk 2-4 lakh.
Then again the BMET allowed the recruiting agency “to deprive” the workers of Tk 34,000 each. The agency, without apparently informing the BMET, settled the matter by paying Tk 50,000 to 10 of the 11 cheated workers and got away.
The victims said they underwent immense financial and mental sufferings, as they had to knock the BMET office numerous times for hearings over a period of two years. They had no alternative to accepting the money.
However, one of the 11, Mohammad Ibrahim still refuses to accept the sum. So he is facing constant threats from the agency.
Ibrahim, 26, of Mymensingh, migrated to Malaysia in 2006. He said he had leased out his land and borrowed to procure Tk 2.2 lakh to go to Malaysia.
He got a job there but never received any salaries. With no work permits issued and dreams shattered after a year, he had to borrow Tk 65,000 for his air ticket to return home penniless.
He filed a complaint with the BMET in March 2008. Finding his and 10 other returnees’ allegations true, BMET asked Golden Arrow several times to pay Tk 9.70 lakh to the 11 victims, including Ibrahim.
The ministry on August 25 this year finally cancelled the licence of Golden Arrow and directed the BMET to distribute “Golden Arrow’s caution money” to the victims.
According to rules every licensed manpower agency has to keep a deposit of around Tk 6.5 lakh with the BMET before launching their business. Recently the government has increased the amount to Tk 15 lakh.
Golden Arrow summoned the victims on October 4 at the office of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) and paid Tk 50,000 each to ten workers.
Mostafizur Rahman, managing director of Golden Arrow, claimed that only two to three complaints of the 11 were genuine, and that BMET delivered the judgments without considering his appeal. “We have settled the matter with the workers before finally quitting the business,” he said.
BMET Acting Director (Employment) Akhtaruzzaman, who heads the investigation cell at the bureau, said he had no knowledge if Golden Arrow was paying the money to the workers after cancellation of their licence.
“Any settlement between the agency and complainants should be done in presence of BMET officials,” he said. However, if the victims accept the sum less than the amount settled by the BMET, victims will bear the responsibility, he added.
Another agency, Nirvana International, found guilty of cheating 20 workers, was asked by BMET to return the returnee workers Tk 16.8 lakh or Tk 84,000 each by July 25 or face legal actions. However, Nirvana is now offering Tk 50,000 to each victim and finding no alternative, some are accepting the sum.
“I asked the BMET why we should accept Tk 50,000, but an official there asked me to accept whatever was available,” said Shah Alam, a victim from Bikrampur, who had no jobs in Malaysia and sold even his house to return home. Now a bus driver, Alam and his family live in someone else’s house.
Asked why Nirvana was paying Tk 50,000 instead of Tk 84,000, its proprietor HBH Zahidur Rahman said he had no other way. He had no business and so he settled the matter with a smaller amount.
Official records show, of the 1,419 complaints filed last year, 797 were settled by BMET. As of July this year, it received 560 complaints in addition to the pending 622 cases of last year. Of the total 1,182 cases, 669 have been settled.
Al-Amin Nayan, a researcher working for Action to Combat Trafficking in Person, said a tiny percentage of the cheated migrants complain to the BMET.
The complainants also find it very difficult to get justice in the absence of strong rules. “Almost all the cheated workers are debt-bonded, as they spend Tk 2-4 lakh to go abroad,” he said.
