WE are left surprised and confused by the expatriates' welfare minister's suggestion that the police not record cases under the Antitrafficking Act against recruiting agents should workers, sent abroad with proper documents, fall victim to trafficking. The rationale behind this suggestion stems from the fact that the Anti-trafficking Act carries harsher punishment (up to death penalty). And as we learn from our esteemed minister, a police probe into such cases puts the recruiting agencies under increased scrutiny which, apparently, is scaring away recruiting agents and this in turn may cause a fall in the number of people going abroad to seek employment, eventually hurting inward remittance.

Such a directive, if it becomes government policy, will achieve only one thing: taking away the rights of the victim to seek redress from erring recruiting agencies, of which there are many. While recruiting agencies registered with Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) may cry wolf and complain about police harassment, there have been many cases of ordinary people being fleeced off their savings and sent abroad with proper documentation but ending up in jobs that are different from what was promised (or not jobs at all). There have been cases where they have been treated as "slaves" with limited pay and poor working conditions, with their passports confiscated, etc.

We find that the minister1 s suggestions are squarely based on giving benefit to recruiting agencies, and nowhere in his statement do we find any reflection on the rights of citizens who risk everything, often selling off what little worldly possessions they have and even resorting to money lenders to cough up the money demanded by recruiters to go abroad for work. We love to show off the billions of dollars generated by our expatriate workers who often toil under very difficult circumstances, but wish to shy away from giving them the protection of the law. This suggestion does not deserve any consideration and the right to file cases under the existing trafficking act must remain.