After being cheated and physically abused, 22 Bangladeshi migrant workers yesterday returned home from Sudan on three separate Air Arabia flights.
In January this year, the workers went to Sudan legally to work in the textile sector, only to be offered wages even lower than in Bangladesh.
The expat affairs secretary, Khandoker Showkat Hossain, said: “I am aware of the matter and our ambassador in Iraq has been given the responsibility to deal with the issue.”
“I do not know the latest situation but I will look into the matter,” the secretary told the Dhaka Tribune.
When asked whether sufficient background checks had been made about safety and work conditions in Sudan, the expat affairs secretary said he would look into it.
Al Amin Noyon, a project officer at SHISHUK, a non-governmental organisation working for the rights of migrant workers, said Al-Purbasha Enterprise sent 58 migrants to Sudan legally, promising handsome salaries but workers were not paid as promised.
When contacted, the proprietor of Al-Purbasha Enterprise, Md Washiul Kabir, was not available for comment. Relatives of the migrants lodged complains at the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry, Noyon said.
According to the victims, a middleman named Sarwar Bashir of Narsingdi, promised workers they would get around Tk40,000 including monthly overtime. When they got to Sudan, the textile industry workers were offered Tk8,000.
“I was working as a mechanic at Sina Textiles in Bangladesh and was paid Tk19,000 per month. But in Sudan I was offered Tk13,000,” one of the returnees, Muhammad Salahuddin, 28, told the Dhaka Tribune over the telephone yesterday.
“We, a group of eight workers, each spent Tk160,000 to go to Sudan,” he said.
Asked why he went to a poor country like Sudan, he said the middleman promised that the owner was Turkish and the salary was good.
“We knew it was a risk. It is our fate,” Salahuddin said.
“When we demanded salary increases, the security guards of the textile firm beat up a number of workers including Jasim Molla, Furkhan and Ruhul,” Aminul Islam, 38, a returnee from Gazipur told this correspondent.
“When I worked at Titas Denim in Bangladesh, I would get a salary of Tk13,000 but in Sudan I was given just Tk8,000,” Aminul said.
“We were without work for about two months,” he added.
