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Drawn to touts in desperate hope

Manpower brokers do not even need to lure fortune-seekers

RAFIQ HASAN
The urge to leave Bangladesh has become so high for fortune-seekers, particularly among those of the younger generation, that manpower recruiting agencies cannot keep pace with the brisk trade in foreign migration, industry sources say.
"People are so desperate that we do not need to seek money from them. Instead, the job seekers pay money in advance and wait for several months for a working visa abroad," said a leading recruiting agent.
Monowara of Pahar Shakhipur in
Tangail paid Tk 1.10 lakh to a recruiting agent for a cleaning job in Saudi Arabia. The company said it will provide free accommodations in the kingdom but she will have to buy food for herself with her monthly salary of 400 rials.
"I sold my home, borrowed money from local money lenders and got financial assistance from relatives to collect the money," Monowara, a poor village woman, told The Daily Star recently.
She said she borrowed Tk 50,000 from local moneylenders at a rate of 6 per cent per month. She does not
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know how she will repay a loan with such high interest, but still she insists on going. "I am very poor. I want to go abroad to earn money," she said in her local dialect.
Monowara could not even name the agency to which she paid the money, as she waited at the Bureau of Manpower Export and Training (BMET) on the April 21 afternoon to attend a briefing session for job seekers abroad.
Like Monowara, as many as 500 people, most of them young, gather at the Bureau every day to receive training on working abroad. They are among what experts say are the ranks of those desperate to leave this country, either because they are jobless or not satisfied with the small earnings they receive from agricultural work or small-scale businesses.
"Though I earn money from agriculture work, I have a future, which is why I am going abroad," said Abdul Khaleque of Keraniganj in Dhaka. He paid Tk 1.60 lakh to a local agent for a working visa.
Noor Ahmed from Jessore echoed similar views. "I became frustrated over the situation in the country so I want to go to Jordan," he says, even though he has not lined up a job. Instead he hopes to find one when he arrives through his brother, who has lived there for several years.
Job seekers currently pay several lakh taka to secure work abroad, between Tk 1.50 lakh to 2.50 lakh for jobs in the Middle East, and as much as Tk seven lakh to migrate to Europe by air or by road.
More than one thousand people leave Bangladesh every day for foreign jobs through legal means. Several hundred more leave the country illegally, the source said. Last year, 2.72 lakh people migrated for overseas employment, the highest number in recent years. More than 60 per cent of them went to Saudi Arabia.
Desperation compels them to take great risks along the way, and many are ready to spend months in detention camps or to languish in
foreign jails, the source said. Officially around 2,500 Bangladeshis are now languishing in foreign jails. But unofficial sources said the number might be as high as 7,000.
In addition, migrants also run the risk of lifetime debt. Monowara, for example, may never be able to repay her loans.
"I am sure she will not be able to recover the money with such a poor salary because she will not be able to save more than 100 rials after food expenditures," said Ziaul Hasan, a Bangladeshi who worked in Saudi Arabia for the last six years.
"A Bangladeshi has to spend at least 300 rials per month for food in Saudi Arabia," said Hasan, a former electrician in the Kingdom.
According to official statistics a total of 39.24 lakh Bangladeshis are working abroad, 19.87 lakh in the Kingdom alone. Their remittances are a huge source of foreign exchange earnings, bringing the country a total of $31.68 billion since 1976.
"Unemployment and lack of opportunities in the country are the main reasons which have made the younger generation desperate to leave the country," said A K M Shamsuddin, secretary in charge of the ministry of expatriate welfare and overseas employment.
"Besides, people want to become rich quickly, which prompts them to seek foreign jobs though many of them are not at all aware about the hardship or difficulties in getting a job abroad," said a high official of the BMET.
According to Shamsuddin, a lack of skills and knowledge about the language of the country concerned are the two major barriers for Bangladeshis seeking to secure foreign jobs.
"There is no bar for a Bangladeshi citizen to go anywhere in the world except Israel," said S M Wahid-uz-Zaman, director general of BMET. He said the bureau gives permission to every one who presents proper documentation for working abroad.