Editorial
A moving story of victimisation
Bring fake recruiters to book
The atrocious tales of Bangladeshi youths being defrauded by fake recruiting agents have become part of our quotidian existence. But the latest incident wherein twenty Bangladeshis landed up in two Tanzanian prisons for 11 months is perhaps the most horrendous in recent times. Although all of them were brought back by the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), a photograph of a wailing returnee at the Shahjalal International Airport in this newspaper vividly reflected the trauma that they had had to go through, not to mention the substantial monetary loss that, in all probability, will pauperise them.
First they were lured into believing they'd be provided with lucrative jobs in South Africa and then they were abandoned at the borders of Tanzania with no travel documents whatsoever. Eventually, the job seekers ended up being caught by Tanzanian police. What is more shocking, it was through a Pakistani national, who had met a similar fate in a Tanzanian jail and was released earlier this year that the BMET came to about their plight. Otherwise, their ordeals could have been far worse.
We wonder how racket of degenerate brokers can still operate in the face of horrendous exposes of their misdeeds for a long time. All these fraudulent agents must be arrested and made to refund the money to their victims as well as recompense them for their trauma.
We believe rackets of brokers active both in Bangladesh and other host countries are in a loop perpetrating inhuman crimes. Our law enforcing agencies should strengthen their monitoring so that none can slip through the cracks of the system. At the same time, we think the Bangladeshi missions overseas should play a more proactive role in coordinating with the host countries to break trans-national nexus of criminals.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments