Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) suggested the government to allocate at least 1 per cent of the country's total budget, or 5 per cent of the remittance the country receives every year to the migration sector.
It has also suggested to initiate legal steps to realize around Tk 263 crore from the 'Ami Probashi App' authority, which was taken illogically from the country's migrants after introducing the app.
At a press conference on Saturday held at Jatiya Press Club, founding chair Dr Tasneem Siddiqui of the RMMRU, an organization working to protect the rights of the Bangladeshi migrants living in different countries, has placed the recommendations.
Among others, RMMRU Executive Director Dr Chowdhury Rafiqul Abrar, Director Merina Sultana, Project Coordinator Aninda Jatirmay, Senior Officer (IT and Communications) Md Parvez Alam and others attended the programme.
Dr Tasneem Siddiqui said that from January to November this, some 906,355 Bangladeshi migrants have migrated to different countries across the world. If the ongoing trend continues, the number would exceed 10 lakh this year. In 2023, the number of
total migrants was 1,305,453. The rate of migration in 2024 would decrease around 31 per cent than the previous year.
She said that due to the political turmoil and changeover of power in July and August, flow of migration was very low. But, the flow started increasing from September and now, on an average one lakh people have been migrating every month.
Though the government claims that it sends migrants to 158 countries, around 95 per cent migrants usually go to 10 major countries. Of the total migrants, 90 per cent migrants go to only six major countries - Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Qatar, Singapore, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Jordan. Saudi Arabia alone hired 541,698 persons, around 60 per cent, while Malaysia 93,356 persons, Qatar 68,530 persons, Singapore 52,175 persons, UAE 47,143 persons and 13,920 persons went to Jordan, she added.
Dr Siddiqui said though the number of migrants reduced this year, the remittance increased. Till November, remittance of US$ 26.4 billion has already received. By this December, one more billion may enter the country. In first seven months of this year, around 15.02 billion dollar entered the country while the amount increased at 9.223 billion in last four months till November.
Regarding the increase of remittance, Tasneem Siddiqui stated that during the last three years of the previous government, the migrants have lost their confidence on the country's banks due to looting and laundering huge amount of money. During the Prof Yunus led government's tenure, they have got their confidence back and started sending money through the banking channel.
She also suggested to increasing the amount of compensation for the cheated migrants five times higher than existing process of compensation and turn the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) to a department including three separate directorates - Immigration and Employment, Training and Welfare.
It also recommended to form a separate reform commission, safe migration and employment for women migrants, reducing the wage earners' fees of migrants, cancelling the labour attaché offices from eight unnecessary countries like Australia, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Japan, South Africa, Mauritius and increasing the offices in the labour sending countries.
