The government has expressed concerns over the unnatural deaths of migrant workers who contribute significantly to the country’s economy by remitting foreign currency.
“To recover the high cost of migration, migrants suffer serious stress abroad. They cannot even cover the costs by working during their contractual work period,” Expatriates’ Welfare Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain said at a press briefing yesterday.
According to statistics provided by the ministry, 738 of 2,496 migrants died unnatural deaths in 2013 whose bodies were received by the Shahjalal International Airport authority.
Two other airports also received bodies but did not specify whether the deaths were natural or unnatural.
Expressing deep concern over the deaths, the expatriates’ welfare minister said even a single death of such nature would be tragic. The average age of these ill-fated migrants was between 30 and 40.
“We will take steps to stop such deaths. We have already taken initiatives to reduce the migration cost. A migrant now goes to Malaysia at only Tk27,000, and to Saudi Arabia at Tk17,400,” the minister told journalists.
In reply to a question, the minister said: “It is unfortunate that we could not make any database of the migrants who returned, but we are trying build one now,” he said.
The government has statistics on those who have migrated, but no statistics on those who return. L
