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They return empty-handed
FROM PAGE 16
Pabna, said. He sold his house on five decimals of land at Tk 3 lakh and borrowed another one lakh to receive training in rod binding in early February in order to land the job.
He returned home on April 22.
He had been promised Singapore $ 800 (Tk 40,000) as a monthly salary, and instead is homeless with an entire family now.
"My parents, sister and I are now boarding at a relative's house in Shalikha village," Rana said describing his hopeless situation. "We are now totally dependent on my electrician father's meagre income to survive."
And even that's not all. The loan Rana had taken out was at 1 do percent interest rate.
"I had promised to pay back Tk 1.5 lakh to the lender within six months of borrowing. The time is approaching, but I don't have a single penny in my pocket.”
Mohammad Hashem, from
Maddhyapara in Tangail, is another such victim of the shrinking job markets abroad.
He went to Dubai on a three-year contract as a rod binder a year ago at a cost ofTk 2.40 lakh. He was able to send home only Tk 80,000 (ill he lost his job and returned home on April 12.
"On April 10 when we went to work our supervisor told us to get into a jeep as he was going to take us to another site. They drove 30 of us Bangladeshi workers straight to the airport, had our visas cancelled and then put us on a plane home,” Hashem told The Daily Star.
The supervisor told us there were no jobs left in the company for us.
Hashem said that he had heard about the slow job market in construction in Dubai but could never imagine that he would become a victim.
"I borrowed all the money I needed to go to Dubai. My family has to repay 20 maunds of rice as interest against Tk
20,000 annually. We are only able to pay part of the interest, not the loan." he said.
Hashem approached the recruiting agency, which arranged his job, but they said there was nothing they could do to help him.
“Who is going to repay my lenders?" Hashem asked.
Experts concerned believe thousands of Bangladeshi workers like Masud and Hashem have relumed home in similar conditions since November last year as shipping businesses in Singapore, manu-facturing industries in Malaysia and construction projects in Dubai have slowed down significantly.
"We have come across reports of Bangladeshi migrant workers being deported, while many are returning home as a result of strict enforcement of Immigration rules and layoffs or long vacation by the employ -ers," says a report by International Organization for Migration (IOM).
1OM suggested mainte-
nance of a database of such returnees and an assessment of the situation in order to take appropriate steps to tackle it.
Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary' Ilias Ahmed, however, said it is not possible for the government to maintain such a database right now.
“We have talked to the immigration police, but they said it is not possible. So. we cannot monitor the issue at this end,” he told The Daily Star.
Bangladesh missions abroad have sent reports on the situation. Ilias Ahmed said, without giving any more details.
He said, “It's nothing alarming"
However, returnees UKe Masud Rana don't even want to know what is alarming and what is not.
The only thing on Rana s mind right now is 'How am I going to survive? And repay my loans?"