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Labour migration to Iraq: The case of the 27 and beyond

Porimol Palma
IT is a classic example of how vulnerable the Bangladeshi migrants remain even when they go abroad through legal channels, maintaining all procedures. It also raises serious questions about the bureaucracy's efficiency and its commitment to protect the Bangladeshi migrants, who fuel the engine of the country’s economy.
I am talking about the condition of the 27 workers who went to Iraq in February and March to work for M Kodia Co. General Trading, a construction firm. They all had valid passports, visas, and emigration clearance from the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET). To manage the migration cost of Tk.3-4 lakh, they also took loan from the Expatriates' Welfare Bank, which was created in 2011 to ensure that overseas jobseekers did not have to sell property or get indebted to meet the cost. A migrant rights NGO, Bangladesh Migrants Foundation (BMF), also ensured that workers (at least the 10 who maintained links with BMF) paid to the recruiting agencies via banks.
However, after the workers arrived in Iraq, the company told them that it did not have jobs at that moment, and asked them to stay at a labour accommodation facility in Najaf, some 160 kilometres south of Baghdad. They were given poor food, often only rice and lentils, and insufficient water and sanitation facilities. The generator malfunctioned frequently for long periods. It is unimaginable how bad things become when one is thirsty and has no cooling system in the Arab desert. The migrants, who once dreamt of changing their fortune with the monthly salary of $350, were even prevented from moving out of the facility, making it no less than a prison.
Not being able to tolerate the migrants' agony, their relatives demonstrated in Dhaka - on July 22 and August 27 - and submitted applications to both the BMET and the expatriates' welfare ministry seeking rescue of the victims. These events got good media coverage too. BMET sent letters to the Bangladesh embassy in Baghdad, which sent an officer to visit the workers in Najaf only once in early August. However, that has not produced any result until now, other than threats from the employer and representatives of the recruiting agencies.
Col. Ziadur Rahman, Bangladesh's labour counsellor in Baghdad, however, told The Daily Star that the employer concerned did not respond to his request for a meeting. He also said that he did not attest the job demand letters of the 27 workers, and that it was not possible for his office to arrange alternative jobs for them. Ziadur Rahman pointed out they needed the Iraqi foreign ministry's permission to move to another place for security reasons.
Meanwhile, the employer gave them $1,200 as salary for four months, and forced them to sign a paper stating they want to return home voluntarily, and will demand no further compensation. Until now, the employer has not handed over the workers' passports or arranged their repatriation.
When the victims are facing a critical situation, the BMET, instead of ensuring the workers' rescue, has asked for arbitration between the victims' relatives and the recruiting agencies - Morning Sun Enterprise, Meghna Trade International, Idea International and East Bengal Overseas - that sent the 27 workers to Iraq.
This series of events raises a number of questions.
First, why is the government arranging the arbitration when rescue of the victims is an imminent need? Is it to help the recruiting agencies, which may face human trafficking charges? If it is not, what problem is the expatriates' welfare ministry trying to solve through arbitration at this juncture?
Second, why could the Bangladesh embassy not engage Iraq's labour ministry to solve the problem even in six months? On August 31, Iraqi Labour and Social Affairs Minister Nassar-Al-Rubaiee signed a memorandum of understanding with Bangladesh on recruiting Bangladeshi workers, saying they needed a large number of labourers for reconstructing Iraq. If that is so, why couldn't these 27 workers be recruited by any other company?
Third, if security is a concern for the Bangladesh embassy officials in Iraq, then how does Bangladesh allow its citizens to migrate there? How can the state put its citizens in danger? It is even more intriguing why the BMET had issued emigration clearances to the workers without having their job demand letters attested by the Bangladesh mission in Baghdad, which could ensure the genuineness of the jobs. This is especially important due to the fact that things are not very stable in Iraq now.
An estimated 7,000 Bangladeshis live in Iraq. According to the BMET, the average flow of monthly labour migration to Iraq is 400. Nobody knows what kind of condition they live in. The way the problems of the 27 migrants are being handled speaks much of how the others are being taken care of by the officials who are paid by the hard-earned money of the workers.
The involvement of the NGO, BMF, is also questionable. NGOs working on migrants' rights have long been demanding cutting of migration cost. Then why did BMF allow workers to pay hefty amounts as migration cost? Couldn't it inform the government of such an exorbitant cost being charged by the recruiting agencies?
Wage earners and taxpayers deserve answers to these questions.
The writer Is Senior Reporter of The Daily Star.
E-mail: porimol25@yahoo.com