Our expatriate workers
Bangladesh, being one of the poorest countries of the world, exports a huge number of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled manpower abroad with a view to earning money in exchange of their hard labour. This trend of exporting manpower to foreign countries, mainly developed ones, has been going on for a long time due to shortage of employment in our country.
Amid uncertainty, about 1 lakh wage earners set out for different countries every year in search of a better future, leaving their near and dear ones behind. In most of the cases, their families are dependent upon their income. Just because they send money to their respective families does not mean that they contribute to their families only. They help give our economy a sustainable position.
According to a report revealed recently, they are sending remittances at an average of $800 million per month from the beginning of 2008 till April 2008, which may trigger the remittances to reach $10 billion by the year-end. It may also be noted here that contribution of remittances to our economy is 10 percent of GDP, whereas our neighbouring India has 3-4 percent and Pakistan has 4-5 percent. They are playing this tremendous role as an abstract force being far away from our vicinity. But what are we doing for them? They are often harassed and humiliated in the foreign lands due to lack of proper foreign and diplomatic policy.
It's true that reputation of Bangladeshi workers is not satisfactory as compared to India and Sri Lanka as most of our wage earners are unskilled. So they need more time to cope with different circumstances they face abroad. But they keep sending their sweated money, be the amount smaller or bigger.
The heartrending tales of many Bangladeshi wage earners working abroad, as we often find in newspapers, fill our eyes with tears. Most of the Middle Eastern countries, including Bahrain and Kuwait, have stopped issuing work permit to Bangladeshi job seekers. Visa transfer has also been made difficult.
But our diplomats and policy makers seem to be blind to the never-ending hassles of the expatriates. Who will resolve their problems? Why can't our policy makers provide them with every legal protection they deserve? It is our duty to make their lives hassle-free abroad. The intervention and all out efforts of the government and foreign policy makers in this regard are a must to put an end to the sufferings of our beloved expatriates.
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