The export of manpower is one of the most significant foreign currency earning sectors of Bangladesh. According to the report of the World Bank, Bangladesh earned $15.5 billion in remittance in 2018, up more than 15% year-on-year.
Remittance is one of the main sources of economic growth, after the ready-made-garments sector. According to the calculation of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) of Bangladesh, as of March, total Bangladeshi number of Bangladeshi migrant workers stood to be approximately 9.25 million, whereas 67% of total migrants' main destination is the Middle Eastern countries.
Mainly the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the Middle East, comprised with Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia & Oman, become the top priority for Bangladeshi workers after the discovery of oil and emerging development in the area.
With the 1973 oil boom and with an increasing demand for cheap labour in the Middle East, the GCC has become the Mecca for the overseas labour.
In 1950, the GCC states began initiating strict nationality and citizenship laws to exempt the immigrants from any political or socio-economic rights to preserve the national identity.
The Kafala (Sponsorship) System is the result of the thought of GCC states. The Kafala System was basically, legalized the temporary and rotating labour.
Under the kafala system, a migrant worker's immigration status is legally bound to an individual employer or sponsor (kafeel) for their contract period. The migrant worker cannot enter the country, transfer employment nor leave the country for any reason without first obtaining explicit written permission from the kafeel. Immigrants have to be sponsored by someone to enter the destination country.
Often the kafeel controls over the migrant worker by seizing their passport and travel documents. If someone dares to leave the workplace without the consent of the sponsor's written consent they may be charged with 'absconding'.
The worst thing is if any migrant worker wants to renounce his/her job for the reason of any torture or sufferings caused by an employer than he/she will be in great danger of being accused of any random criminal offence.
Since the migrant worker barely has any accessible legal means to leave abusive or undesirable conditions, the workplace with the kafala system just turned into a real inferno for the immigrant worker nowhere to seek help.
It is worthy to mention that, GCC countries have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Convention on Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) and eight ILO Fundamental Convention regarding rights to work but none of the six countries of GCC has ratified the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrants Workers and Member of their Families (ICMRW) or the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances (CED).
Besides that, only two (Baharain and Kuwait) out of six states have ratified the ICCPR & ICESCR which are the core of the UN rights framework. In spite of the acceptance of these above-mentioned instruments, the Kafala System remains outstanding with some nominal charges.
As immigrants in GCC countries, Bangladeshis are often subject to inhumane treatment at their respective destinations. It is also a considerable fact that most of the Bangladeshi immigrant workers do their job under temporarily contract where employers are often highly exploitative.
The workplace security standards are very low, which frequently leads to illness, injuries and ultimately caused to death of hundreds of them. According to The Wage Earners Welfare Board information, in everyday Bangladesh is receiving eleven dead bodies on average. In the first nine months of this year, Bangladesh was the last destination of approximately 3,000 of dead bodies when in fact only 5% of them died with natural causes.
The scenario is even worse in the case of female immigrant workers, a large number of whom go for the domestic work.
In 2017, about 83,000 women went to work in the Middle East, but according to the statistics of BRAC 1,300 returns in 2018 and 900 so far in 2019, who are subjected to torture and sexually abused. With the policy of Kafala, these women are often denied access to any forms of redress in case of maltreatment in an alien country.
Since they do not have the opportunity to change their job or leave the job without the consent of the sponsor; they sometimes forced to endure the brutality which in most of the cases leads to death or make an attempt to escape from such situation.
From the beginning of this Kafala system, it has refused the migrant workers from the protection of domestic labour law and the opportunity of entering a labour dispute process to address their complaints. The system gives zero importance to the plight of the migrant workers tied to a sponsor.
According to the Migrant Forum in Asia, "The sending countries and recruiters more or less assist to the kafala system by providing the worker despite the well-documented reports of abuse and exploitation of the migrant worker." The statement seems to be true in the case of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has no desk or representative at the airport of destination countries so that it can ensure the safe arrival of the worker. Where the Overseas Employment and Migrants Worker Act 2013 emphasize the protection of interest worker, the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment (MOEWOE) has barely access to the workplace.
A good framework with the cooperation of international organization is now demand of time to reduce the sufferings of an immigrant worker. The MOEWOE have to be more effective in the destination country so that the immigrants can share their woe and can meet a solution.
Lastly, the country itself can encourage its people on entrepreneurship rather than sending them to an uncertain life abroad.
Manisha Biswas is a law graduate
