Lawmakers, migrant rights campaigners and trade union leaders on Tuesday expressed their grave concerns over the sharp decline in the remittance flow despite marking rise in the workers’ migration from Bangladesh.
Speakers at the quarterly meeting of the Parliamentarians Caucus on Migration and Development in the city on Tuesday, they called for the intervention of the Prime Minister in taking pragmatic steps to take the migration sector ahead by reducing the cost of migration.
Chairman of the Parliamentarians Caucus on Migration and Development Md Israfil Alam MP who presided over the quarterly meeting said that the parliamentary standing committee on expatriates welfare and overseas employment ministry has finalized the draft Wage Earners’ Welfare Board law incorporating reintegration issues of the country’s returnee migrant workers.
‘Migrant workers’ all welfare issues are expected to be protected by the new law,’ he said.
Members of Parliamentarians Caucus on Migration and Development Md Altaf Ali MP and Safura Begum Rumy MP as well as Peace Foundation president Syed A Hassan were present at the meeting.
Isrfil Alam who is also member of the parliamentary standing committee on expatriates welfare and overseas employment said that the labour migration has increased by 35 per cent while the remittance flow has decline by 0.90 per cent in 2017.
He suggested providing one percent incentives in remittance senders and taking stern actions against the private remittance receivers as immediate protection measure.
Lawmaker Safura Begum Rumy said that steps should be taken to protect the migrant workers from clutch of middlemen.
She advocated for insurance coverage for the migrant workers.
Migrant rights campaigner and WARBE Development Foundation secretary general Faruque Ahmed expressed worries that every year about 3500 Bangladesh migrant workers have returned home dead mostly at their early ages.
He observed that the high migration cost has been playing main role in causing londontoto immature death of the Bangladeshi migrant workers abroad.
Faruque, a returnee migrant turned into their rights campaigners, said that the migration sector has become the largest economic sector with overseas employment of over 10 million workers that deserved proper nurturing from the authorities concerned.
‘As really migrant I know pains and sorrows of other migrants who are regularly facing at home and abroad. So I am urging to draw attention of our honorable Prime Minister for her interventions to reduce the migration cost, which is the root of many problems,’ he said.
Echoing Faruque Ahmed, Bangladesh Ovibashi Adhikar Forum Chairman Nazmul Ahsan called for controlling the middlemen involved in the recruitment process.
About the new law, he highly appreciated the government for incorporating the migrants’ reintegration issues with the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board law.
WARBE Development Foundation Chairman Syed Saiful Haque who moderated the quarterly meeting of the Parliamentarians Caucus on Migration and Development stressed the need bringing the middlemen under the legal frameworks.
He expressed his grave concern for sharp decline in remittance inflow despite increase of migration over the years. ‘In 2015, Bangladesh received remittances over $15 billion but the flow has reduced to $12.5 billion in 2017,’ he noted.
Saiful Haque also a migrant right organizer became worried as the specialized migrant’s bank Probashi Kalyan Bank could not be able to facilitate remittances inflow since its inception in 2011.
INAFI Bangladesh executive director Atiqun Nabi said that it was urgently necessary to introduce mandatory insurance coverage for the outgoing migrant workers as it would protect the migrants abroad and their family members at home.
WARBE Development Foundation director Jasiya Khatoon made an overview of the migration sector in Bangladesh and said that over 10 million Bangladeshi workers have migrated to 165 countries through formal recruitment channels.
The number of the country’s migrant workers will be much more actually as many workers have migrated abroad without taking government clearance, she observed.
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