10 bodies of migrant workers arrive daily

Bangladesh receives an average of 10 bodies of migrant workers a day from about 160 countries across the world this year as the country has brought 1,053 bodies home until April 10.

Wage Earners’ Welfare Board data showed that Bangladesh, one of the top 10 labour sending countries, brought back 971 bodies in the past three months between January and March and 82 bodies in the first 10 days of April.

The founding chair of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit, Tasneem Siddiqui, told New Age that the actual number of deceased workers would be much higher than the WEWB data.

She said that most of the victims were between 30 and 35 and was the sole bread earner of their family.

‘Undoubtedly these are untimely the death of working people. So, the government should find out the cause of their death and take action to mitigate it,’ she said.

WEWB director Arif Ahmed Khan said that they kept the statistics of only registered migrants while many Bangladeshis went abroad undocumented.

WEWB statistics showed an increasing trend of arriving bodies of migrants. The country brought home 41, 053 bodies in 20 years between 2002 and 2021. Of them, a total of 10,785 bodies arrived between 2002 and 2011 and 30,268 bodies arrived between 2012 and 2021.

The highest 3,803 bodies of migrants were brought home in 2021. In 2020, a total of 2,884 bodies returned home and in 2019 the number was 3,658, WEWB data showed.

WEWB officials said that the highest number of bodies returned from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia followed by Malaysia. A number of them are women, who mostly returned dead from the KSA.

WEWB data shows that from July 2020 to June 2021 Bangladesh has received 3,657 bodies. Of them, 1,070 from KSA, 838 from Malaysia, 446 from the United Arab Emirates, 389 from Oman, 290 from Kuwait and 221 from Qatar among others.

BRAC migration programme head Shariful Hasan said most of the female dead workers were brought from KSA.

‘Yearly Bangladesh receives 200 to 250 bodies of female workers, mostly from KSA,’ he said.

Migration experts said that death on the way to European countries had increased recently as a huge number of Bangladeshis were trying to enter Europe illegally.

The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, in an official data said that in the first two months of this year they detected 1,014 Bangladeshis who tried to enter Europe illegally.

Lastly, on Monday the body of a Bangladeshi migrant worker, Badal Khandaker, 48, who travelled to Serbia through a legal framework, returned home.

Badal went to Serbia in November 2021 with hopes of a well-paying job that would ensure a better life for his family in the Singair area of Manikganj.

Badal’s brother-in-law Saddam Hossain said that Badal migrated to Serbia through a legal process having valid documents from the government agency.

‘Badal was given a job on a farm which did not exist,’ he said.

Badal realised it after reaching Serbia and contacted his local agent, who asked him to flee to Italy through an illegal channel.

In the early hours of March 7, while trying to make a journey by a lorry on the way to Italy, Badal suddenly fell unconscious and subsequently died in Serbia.

Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program chairman Shakirul Islam said that for the lack of job opportunities at the home many people take risky voyages to Europe.

Many also take the risk for a better life in the developed countries in Europe.

He said that there was no accurate data on the number and cause of death. But as far they could know that some of the victims were abused and some died on their way to being trafficked.

Tasneem Siddiqui said some of the deaths might be natural but the majority of deaths were unnatural and unexpected, she said.

A senior official of WEWB said that according to their primary information, 68.23 per cent of deaths are unnatural. Road accidents caused 10.5 per cent of deaths while stroke and heart attack caused 2.6 per cent and 1.17 per cent of deaths respectively.

Tasneem Siddiqui said that Bangladesh should be more careful about the safety of its workers and should raise its voice in international forums against the abuse of workers.

She also asked the authorities concerned to ensure the safety and health insurance of migrant workers on a priority basis.

Shariful Islam said that until the government could properly manage the migration process death toll would not decline.

He explained that migration cost, contact, conditions of employment, workers’ skills and their orientation were important.

Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training data showed that between 1976 and 2021 nearly 14 million Bangladeshi workers went to 162 countries, 80 per cent of them in the Middle East.

News Courtesy:

https://www.newagebd.net/article/168448/10-bodies-of-migrant-workers-arrive-daily