Hardly 10,000 to 15,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers may return from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia due to their failure to legalise their work status during the current drive. Condemning the number of returnees in recent media reports, Bangladesh Ambassador to KSA Md Shahidul Islam, yesterday, told the Dhaka Tribune over the phone: “Those who are spreading the news that about 800,000 Bangladeshis are staying in Saudi Arabia illegally and 400,000 have to return, I don’t know the basis of their information.”
“I presume the number of illegal immigrants would be 350,000, of who, around 10,000 to 15,000 might be asked to leave,” he said.
The ambassador said: “We have already issued 162,000 consular documents to our workers to legalise their status and so far, around 20,000 migrants have collected out passes from the embassy.”
He said: “If we remain alert, we will be able to help all our workers to get fully legalised.”
On May 10, the Saudi government declared general amnesty for all expatriates, who violated residency and labour regulations, to enable them to amend their status and continue to stay and work without facing any penalties or fines. It would expire on July 3.
Meanwhile, the government has sent additional manpower to Saudi Arabia to assist migrant workers to legalise their status.
The ambassador said the additional manpower is coming to Saudi Arabia every day.
Saudi Arabia has been the major destination for Bangladeshi workers. According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) statistics, over 2.5m Bangladeshi workers have travelled to Saudi Arabia since 1976. Many of them have returned, but there is no official statistics of returnees.
However, the Saudi government has gradually reduced the number of recruitments from Bangladesh since 2009, citing various crimes committed by Bangladeshi migrant workers as their reason.
Recently, a Saudi delegation visited Bangladesh to look into the new process of hiring workers from Bangladesh, which has introduced various measures including smart cards and creating database of aspirant migrant workers to bring transparency in the sector.
Bangladesh ambassador to KSA added that many Saudi companies are still interested to recruit workers from Bangladesh.