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Individual Visas

Missions to attest all documents

Porimol Palma
The government has made mandatory attestation of all job documents by the Bangladesh missions with effect from today instead of holding recruiting agencies responsible for ensuring transparency in labour recruitment process.
Earlier, attestation of job documents was mandatory for only group visas, not for individual visas.
Labour migration experts and recruiting agencies say the decision is impractical and will worsen bureaucratic complexities. In the end, it will open new windows of corruption at the missions, which in turn may affect the labour market, they observe.
The government in an office order on January 16 said in recent times almost 90 percent job seekers go abroad on individual visas. The embassies, BMET and the ministry are not aware of their employers, wages and job conditions.
"So, these workers run the risks of being cheated," commented the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment.
Individual visa means visas issued for up to eight people from Bangladesh for recruitment for a foreign employer. If the number of jobseekers exceeds eight, they will fly on group visas.
The ministry says as the Bangladesh missions don't attest job documents, the government is deprived of revenue income. Besides, the government cannot maintain jobseekers' proper information, which is important to ensure job security.
The Bangladesh missions from now on will attest all job-related documents and share the information with the expatriates' welfare ministry and the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), the ministry order said.
Immigration experts say the government intention is good, but a decision without considering the implications may not be good as the recruiting agencies and unauthorised brokers are not made accountable.
"Attestation by the Bangladesh missions is useless. In Malaysia, the Bangladesh High Commission attested all documents. But the workers faced worst ever abuses in 2007, 2008 and 2009," said Harun Al Rashid, coordinator of CARAMASIA, a Malaysia-based regional forum for labour migration.
He said the Bangladesh mission in Kuala Lumpur attested documents of many fake companies and there were allegations of corruption, adding, the new decision will only waste public money.
Rashid added if the government wants to check fake visas, it has to make its immigration police corruption-free.
Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) Secretary General Ali Haider Chowdhury said the missions take no responsibility when a worker is cheated even if they attest his job documents. It is ultimately the recruiting agency that is held responsible and is to ensure compensation following arbitration, he added.
"There is no problem for mandatory attestation of all documents if the embassy takes full responsibility. Otherwise, it will do no good," he continued.
Recruiting agent Abdul Alim said employers will not take the hassles to go to the embassies for attestation of job documents. It will rather deter overseas jobs, he observed.
"Employers will choose other countries to recruit workers because of such hassles," he said.
Ali Haider said any recruiting agent sending workers abroad must take full responsibility of genuineness of the worker. If they cannot, they should not be in the business, he said.
If the embassies want to maintain database of all workers and employers, the recruiting agencies can help them in this regard, he said.
Harun Al Rashid said defrauding in the labour migration process has been there for years, but the government does not seem to have taken any effective measures to make accountable the unauthorised brokers, who are bringing disasters for many jobseekers.