Thousands of migration seekers have been congregating at Probashi Kallyan Bhaban in Dhaka’s Eskaton everyday since the government announced that Saudi Arabia will recruit workers free of cost.
Every morning, job seekers wait in long queues for getting registration, hoping that they will get enlisted. Sometimes they would even push others to stay in the queue.
Although the authorities keep on cautioning job seekers in loudspeakers to avoid getting lured in brokers nets, some candidates can still be seen paying money to these middlemen for getting their papers through “in the shortest possible time without any hassle.”
The Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry said the Saudi Arabia will primarily recruit only female workers as domestic helps. But very few women can be seen in the long lines outside the Probashi Kallyan Bhaban.
“Job seekers can register their names from any district-level office. But we have seen that those in the queues have mostly come from the districts,” said Mohammad Ali, assistant director of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment.
“Moreover, many of them have already got their names registered when Malaysia announced recruiting workers,” he said.
Talking to the people standing in the queues, this Dhaka Tribune correspondent found that many of them do not know that they can get registered at the district offices.
“I did not know about the facility. Some acquaintances told me to rush to the capital to grab the chance to go to Saudi Arabia,” said Mostafizur Rahman who came from Noakhali.
He gave Tk10 to a broker to get a photocopy of the registration form which can be availabled from the office at free of cost. “He [the broker] showed me how to fill up the form for Tk50,” Mostafiz said.
Sirajul Islam, who works at a restaurant in Nilkhet in the city, thinks he can change his life for good by migrating to Saudi Arabia at free of cost. “I will change my profession. I am ready to do any kind of work in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
On Tuesday, job seekers vandalised a pavilion of the Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry at the ongoing Digital World Fair after authorities suspended distributing forms because of overcrowding.
Most of the registration seekers are not aware that they could have easily collected the forms from the district offices.
According to an official, the Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment office in Dhaka has so far registered 6,500 names until Tuesday. More than 7,000 names were registered yesterday alone. Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia signed a deal on Tuesday under which the oil rich Middle Eastern country will resume importing manpower from Bangladesh gradually.
At present, most of Bangladesh’s remittance comes from Saudi Arabia where over 1.5 million Bangladeshis live. On February 1, following a six-year ban centring anomalies in recruitment processing, the Saudi government announced that it would hire workers from Bangladesh again.
