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Fake visas fail to wake up authorities

Porimol Palma
Dubai-bound Bangladeshi jobseekers are being scanuncd with fake visas more than ever, but the authorities are yet to take any effective measure to remedy die situation.
This ill practice came to the forefront again on Monday when a staggering 87 Bangladeshi jobseekers wefe deported from Dubai Airport as the immigration authorities found their visas to be fake.
"This sort of case is not new. Some workers are deported every week from Dubai for similar reasons," said an immigration police
officer at Zia International Airport in Dhaka. Only when a large number of workers are deported, it catches the attention of the media, headded.
Abdul Malek, director general of Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), said the United Arab Emirates (UAE) issues "photocopy visas" and the BMET does not have any way to verify the authenticity of the visas.
When a country, such as the UAE, issues photocopy visas to foreign workers, the workers will not have the original visa attached to their passports when they reach the port of entry of that particular country. Instead, they will receive
photocopies or faxed copies of the original visas to present before the immigration authorities of that country.
When the workers arrive in Dubai and go through immigration process, their employers or their representatives come to the airport to receive the workers with their original visas.
"Our mission (Bangladesh Embassy] in Dubai cannot attest all the visas issued for our workers. Besides, the small number of officials cannot attest all of die approximately 30,000 visas issued a month," said Abdul Malek.
Fraudsters are highly active to take advantage of this process and they are cheating the jobseekers by producing fake visas, said an immigration official.
Asked to comment on the matter, Didanil Haque, managing director of Heaven Overseas, that processed documents of six of the deported workers, said they only helped the workers get emigration clearance from BMET and that they were not involved in securing or buying visas for the workers.
Most other countries have websites where the authenticity of their visas can be verified, but no such facility is available for the visas issued by the UAE, he said.
"The government should take up the issue immediately with the UA1-. authorities. Otherwise, workers will continue to suffer and the travel agents that arrange the air tickets for the workers will also be affected, since they have to pay the cost of for the return ticket of the deported workers," Didanil Haque said.
Preferring anonymity, another recruiting agent said workers could also wind up being deported if the employers or their representatives in Dubai refuse to accept the workers without the "payment" for the visas, which sells for a good amount of money.
Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Abdul Matin Chowdhury, however, believes that there are criminals in Bangladesh who prepare the fake visas and that they have links with the recruiting agents.
"We shall take action against the recruiting agencies that had processed the documents for the deported workers," he said.
Asked whether the government should be held responsible for not raising the issue of the photocopy visa to the UAE authorities and not establishing a system to check the authenticity of the UAE visas, the secretary said, "We've asked our mission in Dubai to discuss the issue with the authorities. They also tried, but they don’t have sufficient access to the UAE authorities."
Chowdhury, however, said Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with UAE and a joint committee formed under the MoU will soon discuss the issue in the UAE. There are also initiatives at diplomatic levels, he added.
Asked what will happen to the deported workers, DG of BMET Abdul Malek said. "We will write to the 13 agencies involved to arrange jobs for the deported workers."