KSA claims Bangladesh's delay deliberate

Saudi Arabia's recruitment authorities have reportedly blamed Bangladesh's expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry of "deliberately" delaying processing of over 3,000 visas issued for female domestic helps by the Middle Eastern country's embassy in Dhaka.

A Saudi Gazette report yesterday cited that as per the recruitment authorities, the Bangladesh government was waiting for Saudis to start issuing visas for male workers before activating the agreement the two countries signed last February for 12 types of workers.

Denying this, Secretary Khandker Md Iftekhar Haider told The Daily Star that the processing was going on in full swing.

He said some disparities had been found between the recruitment conditions stated in the February agreement and that set by the Saudi recruiting company. "So, we asked them to correct those which took some more time," he said.

The processing restarted following the amendments. "We hope we will be able to send our female migrants to Saudi Arabia very soon," he mentioned.

Replying to a query, the secretary said the low turnout of interested female jobseekers might be for some issues regarding the salary, working conditions, inadequate media campaign and propaganda.

He suspects Bangladeshi recruiting agencies spreading the wrong message among the females, for the recruitment process gives the agencies no scope to exploit the jobseekers.

The Saudi government wants to hire at least 30,000 female domestic helps. But the ministry found only around 3,500 females in the last four months through a countrywide online registration system.