The state has to take visionary initiatives aiming at improving management throughout the entire migration cycle, writes Md Mukhlesur Rahman Akand
OVERSEAS migration outflow and remittance inflow has for long been powering the economic engine, supporting household income of millions and strengthening foreign exchange reserves that drives the overall development.
The year 2025 witnessed the overseas employment of more than 1.12 million Bangladeshis through formal channels in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore and Kuwait. As such, the gross foreign exchange reserve has exceeded $33 billion, partly because of strong remittance receipts, the highest recent months.
Although there is policy emphasis on increasing skilled labour employment, the majority of migrants go abroad in semi-skilled and low-skilled categories, finding them ensnared into a vicious low skills, low wages and low remittances. Not only this, low-skilled workers are employed in high-risk occupations such as construction sites and open-air menial jobs, compromising personal safety and health. They are often exposed to environmental hazards such as extreme heat, noise and long hours of work under the scorching sun suffering from dehydration, heat stroke, dizziness and fall from heights that results in the loss of lives or fatal injuries.
While independent studies show more than 57,000 deaths of Bangladeshi migrant workers taking place in four decades in Gulf countries, concentrating more than 80 per cent of the total Bangladeshi migrants, nearly 38,000 deaths occurred during in the past decade alone. Moreover, recent Wage Earners’ Welfare Board data show that 500–600 bodies were flown into the country each month, which means nearly 20 death a day. Some argue that compared with the huge presence of workers in destination countries, the number is not alarming, a debate that often labels the issue as a ‘coffin versus remittance’ crisis.
What is of particular concern is the way deaths are reported in host countries. Mostly, routine post-mortem reports record causes of deaths as ‘natural’ or because of a ‘cardiac arrest’ and sometimes as ‘not a workplace accident’ while the sending countries lack a voice to raise because of socio-economic and political reasons despite having inked provisions for labour rights protection in their domestic laws and also their pledges made through the adoption of various international labour conventions and, more specifically, the Global Compact for Migration.
Experts underscore the need for impartial investigation of the incidences of death because each of the workers is diligently checked by medical agencies in the sending countries nominated by the Gulf states. These independent medical centres issue certificates of fitness to the aspirants before their departure. Again, most workers are of working age ranging between 25 and 55. As such, it is questionable that workers of such age group having the agility of body and health happen to die of heart attacks within two to six months of their employment abroad.
They point out to the extreme conditions the workers are exposed to at work, especially in the high labour concentrating occupations such as construction sites, their living conditions at hostels or elsewhere, diet and maladjustment to be real causes of such heavy toll of remittance.
A Guardian reports after the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 reported that the workers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal had to work 12–18 hours a day before the event to get the massive stadiums ready there and as such, they had to start working at heights even long before dawn to avoid scalding heat of 50 degree Celsius by mid-day. Bangladesh lost more than 1,000 workers then. Additionally, as Gulf countries are not signatories to ILO and IOM conventions and labour rights regulations and welfare guidelines of these global champions do not, therefore, apply there.
Back in sending countries, labour rights protection mechanism and sustainable management of migration do not get prioritised amid other issues of eminent nature. In such an environment, the migration managers seem more prompt in launching increased number of vehicles to carry corpses from the airport rather than delving deep into factors that cause the ever-increasing number of deaths overseas. Facilities now available for migrants’ families in this connection such as providing Tk 35,000 for the family of the deceased in burial cost, setting up migrants’ lounge at the airport, luggage-wrapping services and availing a place for short, emergency stay near the port of departure and arrival are just the minimum on part of the migration governance authorities.
The state has to take visionary initiatives aiming at improving management throughout the entire migration cycle such as establishing migration communications system, developing an appropriate human capital to use it as the bargaining stake at the negotiating table while discussing the skills and competence of workers along with their rights, improving bilateral memorandums and agreements management ecosystem, holding effective dialogues with the host countries and, above all, developing a migration diplomacy in line with a proven, robust system, for example, as developed by the Philippines Overseas Labour Offices.
In addition to the above, issues such as high migration cost, loan dependence of migrants for meeting the cost, anxiety and uncertainty over the family’s future while the workers are abroad, long-term detachment from families and cultural alienation et cetera need to be addressed if the worker welfare is meant to be catered, not treating them only as remittance earners but also as human beings and respectable citizens.
Md Mukhlesur Rahman Akand is a joint secretary to the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry.
