If you are a Bangladeshi visiting a Middle Eastern country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for example, it is natural for there to be a sense of curiosity about your fellow countrymen present there. So I took the opportunity of interviewing, in an offhand manner, any Bangladeshi I came across on the streets of Saudi Arabia; Bangladeshis are not scarce in number in this vast, arid and tremendously hot country.
A very grim picture of coercion, exploitation and inhumanity was revealed to me only after a handful of such interviews. This is not, however, radically striking news. People at home and abroad are noticeably aware of the treatment the helplessly poor expatriate workers experience at the hand of their employers.
Newspapers in Bangladesh have not been totally blind to the plight of these hapless creatures cleaning streets, washing dishes or selling food almost everywhere in this country. Another article talking about the insufferable suffering of these workers is probably superfluous; however, this humble piece intends to strive to expatiate a largely ignored dimension of the issue, pertaining to the cause of the outflow of Bangladeshis, willingly choosing to be hoodwinked by the apocryphal stories of leading a life of affluence in the Middle East.
There is little that is clandestine about the fact that poor workers and labourers are hardly ever treated well by their employers. Sohail, a native of Tangail and now working as a cleaner in Al Hofuf, revealed to me that many South Asians were entering the country with a salary of two hundred and fifty Riyals a month - little more than five thousand in Bangladeshi taka. Sohail’s own salary is a little more reasonable than that - about nine thousand taka.
It will not be redundant to mention here that he must sustain his physical existence in this expensive Arab city with his scanty salary; sending some extra money home is absolutely unimaginable. These figures represent the basic salaries, though, and most Bangladeshis are interested in opportunities to work overtime, which does boost the salary considerably, and can increase income by five or six times the usual, if they can manage to work, showing complete negligence to all kinds of relaxation and recreation.
The reality is, even though they are willing to dedicate every waking moment of their lives to earning more and more money, not all of them are lucky enough to have the chance to work overtime. Sohail arrived in Saudi Arabia five years ago and has not been able to accumulate enough money to manage a visit to his homeland since then.
He expressed a wistful exasperation as he told me about how he was a proficient tailor and could probably have earned an equal amount of money had he chosen to stay back home. When I asked why he chose to travel to the Middle East he told me that the unreal stories of possible prosperity he had heard had deceived him during his late teenage years, and he was convinced that he was choosing something with more potential than staying in his village as a tailor. While it might be suspected that he was being a little narcissistic about his own ability, the reality of life in the Middle East turned out to be very different for Sohail.
Yes, there is deception. Uneducated South Asians do travel to the Middle East imagining a better future. This is especially true of the youth who believe that they will be able to shake off the burden of the curse of poverty off their backs when they start breathing the air of the oil-rich Middle Eastern countries. For most Bangladeshis, simple minded, half-educated or uneducated Muslims as they are, the commonality of religion makes them feel more assured as well.
However, the greatest impetus is undoubtedly the dearth of good employment opportunities at home and in fact, this very notion is the crux of this piece. In most cases our workers are happy to go abroad for such a low salary because they fail to find a job which pays well in Bangladesh. There is always the option of joining the garment industry, which has witnessed an emphatic revolution in recent times; but there too, as we have come to know, exist similar modes of oppression and coercion of the poor and the unsophisticated.
We are facing a very difficult truth at this moment – that our workers are accepting a form of modern day slavery abroad because they have no better choice. The concerned authorities in our country also have to express assent to shameful regulations and conditions imposed by those in most Arab nations. It would be surprising if we did not feel indignant at the fact that our brothers and sisters are treated so inhumanely in these countries.
A common mistake is to think we should go and have diplomatic meetings to reach a solution to these problems. The very first thing that we must understand is that we must try to address the problem of poverty at home, so that we can have strength in our voices and we are not identified as “miskin” (beggars in Arabic, commonly used to address the Bangladeshis).
Otherwise no matter how skillful the delegates we manage to send to these Arab countries are, the result will still be indignation. One wonders when the nation will learn to rise and transform itself. How much more insult do we need before we finally decide to change our own fate?
