We welcome the arrest by RAB of nine people smugglers on Monday.
More firm action of this sort is needed if authorities are to prevent the inhumane exploitation and trafficking of would-be migrant workers by organised criminals.
It is tragic that the smugglers who were arranging to take people to Malaysia via Teknaf, include, among their number, people who had themselves been victims of human traffickers in the past.
Although people are sometimes tricked by con-men, it is also the case that many people volunteer to be smuggled in search of employment. This is a telling indication of the extent and strength of the push-pull economic factors which lead people to often risk their lives on hazardous journeys with very little prospect of legal employment at the other end.
The only way to eliminate this activity is for authorities to improve inter-governmental co-operation to properly facilitate the legal recruitment and transport of Bangladeshi citizens seeking work overseas.
As a country whose economy relies heavily on the $14bn in annual remittances sent in by our estimated 8 million expatriate workers, the government has to do much more to ensure adequate services and proper representation for all our workers abroad.
It is highly concerning that delays in the issuing of machine readable passports are presently putting at risk the future employment status of hundreds of thousands of our migrant workers in countries such as Saudi Arabia.
We must do better as a nation to uphold the rights of our expatriate workers.