Editorial
Resource-strapped returnees
Explore new avenues for them
A very large chunk of the 34,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers who have just returned from Libya by way of camps in Tunisia, Greece, Egypt and Algeria remain in dire financial straits because of the wages they have not received in Libya. That is worrying, for both the returnees as well as the Bangladesh government. With employment a perennial problem for this resource-strapped country, one can surely understand the hurdles before the government where rehabilitating these workers is concerned. It is a situation which gravely taxes the imagination and calls for a clear, well thought out approach to the issue.
A bit of good news here is the apparent readiness of the World Bank to come forward with loans aimed at easing the burden on the returnees. If the WB wishes the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to be involved in the disbursement of the loans to the returnees, we ought not to set up bureaucratic roadblocks through insisting that the money be routed through the Expatriate Welfare Bank. The IOM has done a creditable job by ensuring the safe return of the migrant workers and so has the skill and ability to follow it up by acting as a link between the WB and the workers in providing financial aid to the latter. The imperative now is for those who have returned home empty-handed to be given some economic lifeline.
Mapping that future will be a huge challenge. For the government, this crisis should be a chance for serious thinking on employment generation in the country. It is unfortunate but true that successive governments have not clearly shaped strategies to employ people in the various professions. That attitude must now come to an end. Meanwhile, with such a large number of workers not just from Libya but from elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East coming back home, it is of critical importance that the government explore, from a sense of immediacy, newer avenues of manpower export. It is not merely the welfare of the workers that is important. The matter of remittances in our economy is crucial as well.
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