Long before a migrant leaves Bangladesh, a family begins weighing hope against uncertainty.
How much will the journey cost? What must be borrowed or sold? How will the household manage until money starts coming home?
Behind the promise of better schooling, medical care, and a secure future lies a difficult calculation. The person leaving carries the family’s expectations; those staying behind shoulder repayments, care responsibilities, and the fear of an uncertain journey.
The experience described by a 73-year-old father captures this dilemma. A former migrant who worked in Saudi Arabia for five years, he now has two sons in Italy and another in Kuwait. His account describes families in his area arranging Tk30-40 lakh for irregular journeys to Europe through savings, loans, land sales, and mortgages.
This is a locally reported range, rather than a national estimate. Nevertheless, it shows how a migration decision can put years of accumulated assets and future income at stake.
The International Organization for Migration’s Asia–Pacific Migration Data Report 2026 gives these household pressures a wider context.
Bangladesh figures prominently as a country of migrant origin and a recipient of remittances. It also faces shifting labour markets, dangerous migration routes, and prolonged displacement. Read together, these findings raise a question: How much security does migration deliver to the people financing and undertaking it?
An estimated 8.7 million international migrants originating from Bangladesh were living abroad in 2024. Remittances are the country’s second-largest source of foreign exchange after exports, which are dominated by ready-made garments.
The report cites preliminary World Bank estimates of $33.9 billion in remittances in 2025, equivalent to around 7% of GDP. Although these calendar-year estimates remain subject to revision, they underline the importance of migrants’ earnings to the economy.
For families, those transfers mean food, treatment, school fees and the possibility of saving. But a remittance received is not necessarily money available to improve living standards. A substantial portion may go straight to lenders.
Some households finance migration by borrowing from several locally-operating microfinance institutions, alongside relatives and informal lenders. Loans may be taken in different household members’ names, creating several repayment obligations around one expected source of income: The migrant’s future earnings.
The instalments do not necessarily wait for that income to arrive. A migrant may still be travelling, stranded in transit, or waiting for work when repayments begin. Some spend prolonged periods in broker-controlled accommodation, including spaces sometimes described as “game rooms,” awaiting onward movement.
Conditions vary, but uncertain departures, additional payment demands, and limited communication can leave families with little control over events.
Even arrival does not guarantee financial relief. Workers need dependable employment, regular wages, and enough income after living expenses to send money home. Until then, relatives must cover installments from existing earnings, savings, or further borrowing. Spending on healthcare, schooling and food may be squeezed. Assets intended to secure the family’s future may be sold to meet its immediate obligations.
Financial pressure is accompanied by emotional strain. A delayed telephone call can provoke fears about detention, exploitation, or a dangerous crossing. Migrants may feel compelled to continue because their families have invested heavily.
Relatives may agree to further payments because refusing seems to endanger the traveller or sacrifice everything already spent. These pressures deserve attention in migration services.
The father’s account helps explain why warnings alone may fail. Young people compare uncertain local livelihoods with the houses, land, and businesses acquired by successful migrants. Stories of success circulate through relatives, neighbours, and social media. Failed journeys and lingering debts can be less visible.
Families are making decisions within this social landscape. Their willingness to accept danger should not be mistaken for indifference to it. When local opportunities appear inadequate and regular pathways remain difficult to access, a hazardous offer can become painfully persuasive. Meaningful choice requires credible alternatives.
The IOM report shows how vulnerable existing opportunities are to changes abroad. Registered overseas labour outflows reached approximately 1.13 million in 2025, below the 2023 peak. Departures to Malaysia fell to 3,451, around 99% below 2023 levels. Outflows to the United Arab Emirates declined by 70% from 2024, while only 671 departures to Oman were recorded. Growth in other destinations partly offset these contractions.
For prospective workers, such changes can leave paid-for plans suspended. September reporting that Malaysia-bound workers were awaiting clarity about costs, medical tests, and departure dates illustrates the consequences.
Reopening a labour market matters only when workers can access verified jobs through transparent procedures and obtain remedies when recruitment fails.
Bangladesh needs firmer accountability throughout the recruitment chain. Workers should receive understandable contracts, itemized charges, receipts, and reliable employer verification. Agencies must answer for intermediaries acting on their behalf. Complaints should produce timely investigations, with refunds or compensation where justified.
A phased transition towards employer-paid recruitment should be a diplomatic priority. Meanwhile, lenders need to assess a household’s combined obligations rather than each loan separately. Financing verified overseas employment should allow repayment arrangements that reflect the time required to begin earning. Debt counselling, appropriate restructuring and psychosocial support should be available when recruitment fails or workers experience exploitation.
The European-route figures make these reforms urgent. Bangladeshis accounted for 24,318 recorded irregular arrivals from Asia to Europe in 2025, approximately 52% of that regional total. They represented three quarters of Asian arrivals on the Central Mediterranean route. Recorded Bangladeshi arrivals on the Eastern Mediterranean route rose from 1,133 in 2024 to 3,831 in 2025.
The report describes sea journeys from Libya towards Italy and, increasingly, from eastern Libya to Crete and Gavdos in Greece. It also records Bangladeshi transit movements through the Western Balkans. Journeys can combine regular travel to transit countries with irregular onward crossings. Each interruption can prolong family anxiety while loan obligations continue.
Bangladesh’s diplomacy must address conditions along these journeys. Rescue, legal assistance, family contact, and wage recovery should receive sustained attention. People travelling through irregular channels must receive humane treatment and protection. Return arrangements should consider individual circumstances, with reintegration support addressing health, debt, and employment.
Training also needs a clearer connection to employment. A September 28 consultation reported in The Daily Star highlighted weak links between skills programs and jobs, alongside difficulties securing recognition of qualifications abroad. Training should follow verified demand and include practical competence and language preparation. Placement, earnings, and job retention should determine whether it works.
Migration policy must also account for those who remain at home. Spouses and grandparents often take on additional care responsibilities. Children’s learning and older people’s well-being deserve support. Women, who represented only 6% of recorded labour outflows in 2025, need affordable training, safe accommodation, and effective protection against harassment and exploitation.
Displacement adds another layer of insecurity. IOM’s nationwide assessment with the government estimated 4.96 million disaster-related internally displaced people as of October 2025. Around 63% had been displaced before April 2020. This enduring population is distinct from the 105,000 new disaster-related displacement events recorded in 2025.
Housing, education, healthcare, and livelihood assistance must address that duration. Climate diplomacy should seek adaptation and loss-and-damage financing that supports communities’ choices about remaining, relocating, or rebuilding.
Bangladesh should measure migration’s success through recruitment costs, household debt, wage recovery, and family well-being alongside remittance receipts. Migrants and their families must help shape that assessment.
A family borrowing to finance migration is investing in hope. Public institutions and international partnerships should help ensure that the hope survives the journey and becomes security when earnings finally come home.
Iqbal Ehsan is a development professional and researcher. Email: ehsan656@gmail.com.