BY OWASIM UDDIN BHUYAN
The International Migrants Day 2020 has been celebrated on December 18 across the world during this COVID-19 pandemic that has badly affected lives and livelihoods of the millions of the migrant workers.
Like other countries, the migrant workers have experienced joblessness, food scarcity, undocumented situation, detention and deportation at destinations while many others faced xenophobic situation from the society on return home amid COVID-19 pandemic.
Global migration experts have emphasized the need for forging strong partnership among all stakeholders including trade unions and civil society organizations to protect the millions of migrant workers facing crisis across the world due to COVID-19 pandemic.
Marking the International Migrants Day 2020, the government’s concerned ministries, civil society organizations and returned migrant workers held press conference, discussions and various programmes.
Concerned International organizations ILO, IOM, Solidarity Center and Migrants Forum in Asia (MFA) have disseminated their statements on occasions of the International Migrants Day 2020 and expressed their solidarity with migrant workers.
In Bangladesh, CSOs, Trade unions and migrant workers have observed the day in befitted manners, said officials concerned.
Bangladesh CSOs including OvibashiKarmiUnnayan Program (OKUP) organized programmes in Sonargoan of Narayanganj while Bangladeshi OvhibashiMohilaSramik Association (BOMSA) celebrated the day in Savar of Dhaka and Bangladesh NariSramik Kendra (BNSK) held programs in Shingrai of Manikganj, said, concerned officials.
Among other, WARBE Development Foundation brought out rallies in front of National Press Club and Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) disseminated their messages through social media and online to mark the day.
Awaj Foundation, a trade union in Bangladesh, also brought out rallies in the city to celebrate the day and it also demanded protection of the migrant workers.
Meanwhile, representatives from international organizations, Bangladeshi diaspora organizations and trade union leaders have made their remarks and sent the messages.
The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome was first identified in December last year in Wuhan, China. More than 74 million cases have been confirmed, with more than 1.64 million deaths attributed to COVID-19 globally.
On the occasion of 18 December, which marks the International Migrants Day and the two-year anniversary of the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) it has been important international efforts to foster justice for the migrants in crisis.
Bangladesh sends, on an average, 6 lakh workers abroad each year and it receives annual remittance of US$ 16 billion, according to officials.
Over 13 million Bangladeshi migrants have gone to work to 170 countries since 1976, according to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET).
Wage Earners, Welfare Board recorded that over 3.27 lakh Bangladeshi migrant workers, mostly from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have returned home from April to November.
Of them, 2.87 lakh were male and 40,000 were female migrants, the data show.
Apart from KSA and UAE, Bangladeshi migrants have largely come back home from Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Maldives, Malaysia, Jordan and Lebanon.
ILO estimates 164 million migrant workers worldwide, approximately 111.2 million (67.9 per cent) live in high-income countries, 30.5 million (18.6 per cent) in upper-middle-income countries, 16.6 million (10.1 per cent) in lower-middle-income countries and 5.6 million (3.4 per cent) in low-income countries.
As part of celebrating IMD, on December 19, Bangladeshi OvhibashiMohilaSramik Association (BOMSA) has sought interventions of the Prime Minister to protect the country’s women migrant workers by including provisions of the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act 2013through its amendment.
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Speaking at a press conference in Dhaka Reporters’ Unity, the BOMSA officials presented the 6-point demand marking the International Migrants’ Day 2020 for ensuring legal rights of the country’s women migrant workers facing problems.
BOMSA director Advocate Farida Yeasmin said that her organization was appealing to the Prime Minister to take necessary steps to protect the women workers who were in crisis at home and abroad.
As Bangladesh was a party of International Convention or Agreement 1990, she said that so the state would have to immediately amend the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act 2013 to remove all obstacles of women migration.
Reading out a statement, Farida Yeasmin, also a senior Supreme Court Lawyer, said that the government should include some provisions to ensure security and protection of women migrant workers through facilitating the safe migration.
On behalf of BOMSA, she said that state should clearly identify “cause of death” of migrant workers through conducting postmortem of each dead body of the migrants. The monitoring and accountability of the embassies should be ensured in this regard.
“If the negligence of the people is found, they should be held accountable and punished,” she said.
For the interest of ensuring justice, all of the migrants’ cases filed in the countries of destinations should be followed up and monitored properly by the Bangladesh missions abroad.
Bangladesh government should adopt and implement “Zero Tolerance Policy” against the killings of the country’ migrants, she added.
As per Wage Earners Welfare Act 2018, the necessary projects should be taken for reintegration of the returned women migrants and supporting their families back home.
Two Bangladeshi women migrants who have returned home recently from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have narrated their experiences at the press conference.
Of them, Karima, 30, of Shibpur of Narsingdi said that she was forced to send back home without providing her due wages of 12 months.
“To survive I had to eat stealing the foods and the employer tortured me regularly whenever I asked for wages,” she said, adding that she had been sent back home in August 2020 by Saudi Police detained her for a week.
“I have worked for one year for the employer but I was denied my total wage,’ she said.
Another woman migrant Hazeera Begum said her employer was good enough to pay her wage but she was forced to do domestic works from early morning to midnight.
Hazeerenara came back to Bangladesh on leave and she is scheduled to return to the KSA in January.
She said that she had been working for 4 years and six months for the same employer.
Meanwhile Bangladesh missions abroad especially in labour recipient countries in West Asia, Africa, East Asia celebrated the IMD with due importance.
Officials in Dhaka said that Bangladesh Prime Minister is scheduled to inaugurate a big programme on IMD on January 6, 2021
