Preserve database to check abuse of women workers
Saudi delegates suggest
Staff Correspondent
Saudi Arabia National Recruitment Committee (Sanarcom) yesterday suggested to the government to preserve database of women migrant workers in the Bangladeshi mission at Saudi Arabia to check abuse of workers and fraudulent practices in the migration process.A five-member team of the Saudi national body also proposed to sign a contract on a 'minimum agreed ground' with its Bangladeshi counterpart Baira to check undocumented labour migration, sources said. The team suggested the steps during a meeting with State Minister for Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Quamrul Islam in the city. Although there are about 20,000 legal Bangladeshi female migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, about 1.5 lakh female migrants are working there with undocumented status, official sources said. "Mainly these undocumented female workers, who have no access to the authority for making a complaint, face abuse and harassment," Sanarcom Chairman Waleeda Al-Suaidan said at the meeting. AKM Shamsuddin, secretary to expatriate welfare ministry, Mosharraf Hossain MP, president of Bangladesh Association for International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) and its executive member Abdul Alim were present. If the Bangladeshi mission has all the particulars of the migrant workers, it can verify the workers' contracts with the employers and the recruiting agencies for immediate action in case of any abuse or harassment, Waleeda observed. The delegates said that their country would recruit about 1.5 lakh female workers from Bangladesh a year if they are imparted adequate training. Waleeda urged the government to allow all recruiting agencies in Bangladesh to send female migrant workers. At present, only eight agencies can send female migrant workers to Saudi Arabia. State Minister Quamrul Islam appreciated the Sanarcom proposals and requested it to go ahead in consultation with Baira for streamlining the migration process. He also discussed the issue of pay rise for the Bangladeshi workers. Waleed said the Saudi government has recently set up the Department of Welfare of Expatriate to deal with the various issues of the expatriate workers. He also said the demand for foreign labour in the Saudi Arabia will be high very soon as it is going to make an investment of about 10 billion dollars to build new cities and railway network early next year.
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