Our overseas workers deserve better

In 2017 alone, over a million people went overseas for work, of whom 121,925 were women. But, all too often, our workers abroad find themselves vulnerable to severely adverse working conditions, inhumane treatment, and unfair workloads. They are duped into jobs they never signed up for, and are subjected to abuse both physical and mental, forced to work under employers whose treatment of them is nothing short of inhumane. While countless workers live under such deplorable conditions, the abuse faced by our women is especially despicable. Every day, their stories of horror are revealed in the media, and, yet, there is no one there to protect them. So many women make this perilous journey so that they can provide for their families back home, only for have their own country all but abandon them. To that end, we feel compelled to ask: What exactly are our embassies doing? The government has a moral responsibility to ensure that our workers overseas are taken care of and that their rights are protected, not only because they are keeping our nation’s economy afloat, but simply because of the fact that they are our citizens. Considering the fact that foreign remittance is one of the biggest contributors to our economy -- right up there with RMG exports -- accounting for over $12 billion, ensuring workers’ safety could only have positive impacts on our foreign remittance, potentially increasing inflow by a greater degree. These hard-working men and women have left everything behind in order to serve their nation’s economic interests, and it is about time that the country started giving back to them. To that end, ensuring that their basic human rights are upheld, would be a good start.