The Vigilance Taskforce of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, charged with checking human trafficking and irregularities in the migration sector, has hardly been active in the year since it was formed.
According to a ministry official, only four drives were conducted from early 2012 to the middle of April this year, despite allegations of rampant cheating and recruitment scams in the sector.
Lack of monitoring and ‘lenient’ penalties allow unscrupulous manpower agents and middlemen to continue to exploit poor overseas job seekers.
An official of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) said in total 460 complaints about being cheated were received last year. Out of them, facts related to 307 cases were proven.
Migrant workers in their letters of complaint alleged they did not get employment as per their contracts, and they were either paid “very low” wages or not paid at all.
Some said they were duped with false promises of employment when they were sent abroad, but ended up with no jobs, the BMET official said.
Professor Tasneem Siddiqui, founding chairman of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), a research and advocacy institution, told the Dhaka Tribune most of cases of fraud are not reported, “since for many it is difficult to come to Dhaka and lodge complaints.”
In its last annual report, “International Labour migration from Bangladesh 2012: Achievements and Challenges”, the RMMRU claimed to have retrieved over Tk2.37m from manpower agents in the first nine months of 2012, and reimbursed people from whom the agents had taken the money. According to the report, the institution managed to do so through arbitrations held in 21 unions across the country.
Last year, the expatriates’ welfare ministry formed a 13-member vigilance taskforce to ensure transparency and accountability in the process of labour immigration, which in December a TIB report said was the country’s “most corrupt service sector.”
The ministry issued a gazette notification on January 8, 2012, which was amended on June 22, 2012 about the taskforce, which is comprised of one representative from the foreign, home, civil aviation and expatriates’ welfare ministries, and one from agencies such as BMET, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), the Special Branch (SB) of Police, the Coast Guard, Directorate of Health, International Organisation of Migrations (IOM) and Bangladesh Association of International Recruitment Agencies (BAIRA).
According to the gazette notification, the taskforce is supposed to ensure workers are not exploited and trafficked, and must investigate the activities of recruiting agencies involved in sending workers abroad.
It states the taskforce must inspect the diagnostic and pathology centres that issue medical certificates after check-ups of overseas job seekers. It may take legal steps against agencies violating the rules and policies of labour immigration, and against those sending workers abroad illegally. It is supposed to settle and monitor allegations received in this regard.
The taskforce is supposed to meet at least once a month and report its activities to the concerned ministry and organisations. But, according to a source at the expatriates’ welfare ministry, only three meetings were held since the unit was formed.
Shontosh Kumar Adhikary, head of the taskforce, however said there might have been irregular meetings but a number of drives were carried out to check illegal migrations.
Zafar Ahmed Khan, expatriates’ welfare secretary, told the Dhaka Tribune, “I have instructed the officials concerned to ensure the taskforce functions properly.”
