Agents in Malaysia have swindled a huge sum of money from thousands of Bangladeshi workers in the Southeast Asian country, who, over the last two years, had applied to regularise their immigration status, victims and researchers said. The exploitation of workers began after Malaysia declared a rehiring programme in February 2016 and appointed three private […]
Category: Bangladesh
Hasan had applied for a work permit nearly six months before the Malaysian authorities’ rehiring programme for undocumented foreign workers ended on June 30. He had all the documents to prove that, but those meant nothing to the immigration police. On September 3, the police detained him and dozens of others from Bukit Bintang area […]
It was around 9:00pm on September 11. After a day’s hard work, some of the 10 workers living in a makeshift house next to a large construction site in Malaysia’s Cyberjaya were preparing food while others were either having meals or chatting before going to bed. Suddenly, they heard the sound of four to five […]
Thousands of Bangladeshis are facing risks of arrest and deportation from Malaysia as its rehiring programme, launched two years ago to legalise undocumented workers, ends today. The risks have been heightened also as the new Malaysian government, which came to power last month, has recently decided to cancel work permits of the migrants employed for […]
Sharmeen (not real name), 35, of Munshiganj, returned from Saudi Arabia on May 24, five months after she had gone to the kingdom for work. “My husband is not accepting me. He asked why I did not send money and why I returned home,” she told this correspondent on June 6. Sharmeen proceeded to recount […]
Every day, Rehana Khatun had to toil for hours for a family of 12 near Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Despite this, she was not properly fed and allowed to sleep for more than four hours. Sometimes, the 35-year-old had stomach ache because of her gastrointestinal problems. But she was too afraid to complain […]
Young Bangladeshi female migrants, working in the middle eastern and other oil-rich countries are increasingly subjected to torture and sexual abuse by their employers. Sources in Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh said that of the victims, younger ones become more vulnerable despite their legal status in the destination countries. In many cases the employers pick them […]
Bangladeshi migrant workers experienced the worst year in 2017, with around 3,500 dead bodies sent back from different countries, the highest number ever in a single year. Most of these migrant workers who died due to “heart attacks and strokes” were between the ages of 30 and 45 — an unlikely age to have such […]
When Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led the imposition of a political and economic blockade on Qatar last month, there were immediate, far-reaching consequences: Flights were canceled and rerouted, Qatari citizens were expelled from other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, shipping routes were closed and airspace was suddenly off-limits to Qatar’s pilots. […]
Migrants workers are not slaves. They are human beings too, and have rights to survive with dignity like others in the world”, Dulal of Bangladesh said to me, while returning from Qatar recently. In Doha, Qatar to report on the plights of migrant workers, I met and talked to some of the ill-fated migrant workers […]