WHEEL MOVERS OF BANGLADESH

Background

Executive Summary: Bangladesh’s 10 million international migrant workers have

been contributing to the country’s economic development while ensuring welfare of
millions who depend on them.  In return for short-term employment contracts, strong
remittances inflows propelled Bangladesh to become the world’s 11 th largest
remittance-recipient economy; The study aims at understanding the extent to which
existing migration-related institutions and agencies have adopted a citizen-centric and
gender-sensitive approach to addressing the needs of both men and women leaving the
country for overseas employment. This paper presents the findings of the background of
the study. The central findings are presented below:

Migrating workers & Bangladesh: Migrating workers are an asset for our country,
every year a lion share of remittance our country earns through this workers. Our Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina has enlightened on this issue and asked our Foreign minister
AK Abdul Momen and Labor minister Monnujan Sufiyan to prepare a well-established
plan so that our country can earn more remittance in upcoming year and also ensure
proper facilities of our migrating employees. The labor migrants remitted more than
USD15 billion. Last year the remittance figure was USD 14.94 billion. Since 2013,
Bangladesh has been the seventh largest remittance receiving country of the world.
Similar to last year, this year as well Saudi Arabia is the highest remittance sending
country for Bangladesh (21.49%). It is followed by UAE (18.14%) and the USA
(16.11%).

Issues to improvise: In most of the countries like Malaysia, Dubai, Kuwait etc.
countries return back many of our employees all of a sudden and this situation makes
them unemployed, so there must be a rules so that migrating labors can’t be sacked
without any reason Ensuring proper health service for the migrating labors. Their wage
rate should be constant, in which wage rate they will work this have to be fixed.
Migrating labors faces trouble in housing. Ministry should work on affordable housing for
migrating labors. Job creation is the main driving force for poverty alleviation.

Foreign Ministry initiatives: Negotiation of their wages: Labors can negotiate for the
rate of their wages, so that they can negotiate for their proper wages according to their
job responsibility. Migrant women are particularly vulnerable to labor abuses due to their
reliance on employers to issue visas, accommodation, and salary. Further, they have
limited access to information and encounter language barriers, which hinder them from
identifying or reporting poor treatment and/or conditions. Labor inspections are useful
but do not necessarily cover the informal sector, despite having a higher risk of abuse
and exploitation.

Bangladeshi Migrants working worldwide: Bangladesh sent a record number of

10.08 lakh workers abroad in 2017. The number woman power export increased at 10,
08,525 in 2017 from 7, 57,731 in 2016.Nurul Islam said Bangladesh is now exporting
manpower to 165 countries across the world. The number of manpower export is on rise
due to different measures taken by the government. Most of the employees Out of the
3,975,550 Bangladeshis abroad approximately 2,820,000 live within the Middle East,
0.075% of the Middle East population, with half of them in Saudi Arabia, and a quarter
of them in the United Arab Emirates. Almost 52 lakh Bangladeshi workers got overseas
jobs in the last nine years during the two consecutive regimes of the government.
Bangladeshis in Japan form one of the smaller populations of foreigners in Japan.

Achievement of Bangladeshi people in different sectors:

Bangladeshis are also working in different foreign parliament as well. For the first time
British parliament has 3 lawmakers with roots in Bangladesh and they are– Tulip
Siddiq , Rawshanara Ali and Rupa Huq – made it to the house of commons .Sabrin
Farooqui has become the first female Bangladeshi origin who received Australian Labor
Party (ALP) nomination for a parliamentary seat in the upcoming state election on
March. Rushanara Ali, the first British Bangladeshi MP.Bangladesh cricket team has
world recognition. They have achieved a lot during the time. And that certainly most of
the people in abroad know Bangladesh by called by Sakib’s and Tamim’s country. So
it’s a great achievement for Bangladesh. They have brought such honor for their own
country. Even in different sectors of sports bring honor for Bangladesh. They include
four shooters, including the only woman, two archers, and one swimmer.Wasifa
Nazreen became the first Bangladeshi to climb the mountain peaks of all seven
continents.

Prestigious works and High scale worker: Dr. Muqsudul Alam and his team have
disclosed genome sequence of jute. Abdus Suttar Khan was a Bangladeshi scientist.
He researched on aerospace for four decades with NASA. Jawed Karim is an
American-Bangladeshi cofounder of YouTube. Saleh M. M. Rahman works as a
professor of medicine and Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion at the University Of
Central Florida College Of Medicine. Mohammad Ataul Karim is a Bangladeshi
American scientist.

The economic growth we are gaining from the migrant of Bangladeshi labor: After
many incidents Bangladeshi government has come up with affixed a rate of their
migrant workers in abroad. The highest migration cost was fixed at Tk 262,270
(including training cost) for Singapore. However, the migration cost for women workers
to go to Saudi Arab is now zero, said the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment
minister of Bangladesh has sent 2,49,528 workers overseas and received $4,530.46
million as remittance till 2018. Something that contributed significantly in the
socioeconomic advancement of the nation.

Moderate scale of labor: 57 Bangladeshi-owned curry houses, and in England as a

whole, around 90% of all curry houses are owned by British Bangladeshis. Many other
Bangladeshis own grocery stores. Whitechapel is a thriving local street market, offering
many low-priced goods for the local Bengali community. Remittance slipped 2.54
percent year-on-year to $14.93 billion in fiscal 2015-16 though outflow of migrants
jumped more than 62 percent to 6.84 lakh during the same period with the major flow of
migrants to Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and
Lebanon. According to the Bangladesh Economic Review. At least 3,480 Bangladeshi
workers died abroad in 2017, mostly due to stroke or heart attack, expatriates welfare
and overseas employment ministry officials said.
Miseries of Bangladeshis: British Bangladeshis have the highest overall relative
poverty rate of any ethnic group in the UK with 65% of Bangladeshis living in low
income households. Businesses have also been established by the British expatriates in
the city of Sylhet, such as hotels, restaurants, often themed on those found in London,
have also been established to cater to the visiting Sylheti expatriate population and the
growing Sylheti middle classes According to a news article from the website Mashable
released in 2015, it stated that reported that 26% of the Bangladeshi American
community lived under the poverty line. This is much higher than the USA average of
16% according to data released by the Economic Policy Institute. Many of these
Bangladeshis were taxicab drivers, while others had white-collar occupations. In Atlantic
City s some got into casinos. British Bangladeshis have the highest overall relative
poverty rate of any ethnic group in the UK with 65% of Bangladeshis living in low
income households. Bangladeshis are now mainly employed in the distribution, hotel
and restaurant industries.

Remittances: Bangladesh ranks seventh in the list of the world’s top remittance-
receiving nations. The remittances Bangladeshi migrants and diaspora members send
home to their relatives contribute significantly to household incomes and to
Bangladesh's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to the Bangladeshi
government, remittances amounted to US$ 13.8 billion in 2013, they accounted for
more than nine percent of the country's GDP. The total sum of remittances has steadily
increased from 1980 (US$ 339 million) to 2012 (US$ 14.2 billion). 2013 was the first
year to register a decline (2.3 percent less compared to the previous year).

Approximate number of migrant workers: Bangladeshis in the Middle East form the
largest part of the worldwide Bangladeshi diaspora. Out of the 3,975,550 Bangladeshis
abroad approximately 2,820,000 live within the Middle East, 0.075% of the Middle East
population, with half of them in Saudi Arabia, and a quarter of them in the United Arab
Emirates. Migrant labor in the region, from which Bangladeshi citizens form a sizable
minority, are brought in through the kafala system, which provides employment-based
visas and bars workers from attaining longer-term residency. Like other Asian
expatriates, Bangladeshi citizens have sought work in the region primarily to send
remittances back to their families and share little in common culturally with their host
societies. Achievement of Bangladeshi Individuals: Sal Khan born in a Bengali family
who founded Khan Academy, a free online education platform and an organization with
which he has produced over 6,500 video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic
subjects, originally focusing on mathematics and sciences.Jawad Karim is an American-
Bangladeshi Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of YouTube. He is the first person to
upload a video to the site. This inaugural video – titled Me at the zoo – has been viewed
over 63 million times as of March 2019.In 2015, M. Zahid Hasan led a team in Princeton
University which discovered the elusive Weyl Fermion predicted 85 years ago by
Hermann Weyl. This discovery is believed to have revolutionized the entire field of
electronics and will usher the world into a new era of technology. Tommy Miah is a
British celebrity chef, owner of the award-winning Raj Restaurant and founder of the
International Indian Chef of the Year Competition.

The wheel mover of Bangladeshi Economy: Bangladesh is a densely populated

country where unemployment is the most severe problem. Every year a large amount of
graduate passes their degree but they hardly manage to a job as the job opportunities
are fewer than the graduate. . So combining both the graduate and under graduate
most of the people found themselves unemployed due to lack of job opportunity. As a
result, a large portion of unemployed people go to overseas to change the wheel of fate.
Most of them go to abroad as with working visa for a few years. However, these migrant
workers are very crucial for the economy of Bangladesh as they directly involved with it
by earning remittance. Remittance has now become the largest single source of foreign
exchange earnings in Bangladesh.

Reputations Earned: The migrant workers who go to abroad for job or work they also
represent the country as a citizen of Bangladesh. Their skillful working, responsibility,
honesty and sincerity help them to achieve the praise and admiralty from the job owner
and at the same time as they also make us proud to be a Bangladeshi. Thus the
reputation of Bangladeshi labors is increasing day by day throughout the world. It is also
important to determine the factors which affect household poverty and to explore
whether skilled and unskilled migration appears.
The Country’s Condition Change for the Expatriates: Lots of unemployed people
found a job by migrating to foreign counties and they able to remove the tag of
unemployment curse. They able to manage a job suitable job for them by switching to
foreign countries and make themselves successful which motivate the others to go to
the abroad to change the wheel of fate. The upward social mobility of migrants in the
host society connected to access for higher paid jobs can increase the overall volume of
remittances. By migrating the country, the unemployed population has become into
skilled and employed human resource and plays a significant role in the socio-
economical aspect by reducing poverty and increase the skill.

Women Migration on the Economy: Before the garments industry revolution in

Bangladesh, internal migration was only limited with male but now the pattern of
migration changes according to gender, around 40% of male migrant and 28% female
migrant moved from one country to another country.. Few years ago the women who
lived in the rural area and fight with poverty through working on agricultural area. But
the condition has been changed a lot, through different kinds of survey and analysis we
are able to know that around 1,600 women and 600 men of the village are working in
different countries in the Middle East.

Challenges in Migration: There can be arise some problematic issues for migrant
workers like more than half of the migrant workers from Bangladesh are classified as
less skilled as well as they have little education and poor access to information, the
disappointment to out of poverty can create cloud on basic awareness and judgment of
utilizing reliable services and channels of migration. Only 10 percent of Bangladeshi
workers migrate through formal channels or right person. For this reason, a large
portion of employee frequently fall victim to fraudulent middlemen or broker, and
exploitative employers, leading to loss of their lifetime savings and assets. Women are
the major victims in terms of migration, the problem can be occur for the
accommodation related as well as physical harassment. Living cost is very high in many
developed countries, so a good house rent is quite impossible for low wage workers.

Trainings Govt. providing: The government might provide various trainings including
diploma in ship building engineering, refrigeration and air-conditioning, general
mechanics, electrical machine maintenance, auto CAD 2D and 3D, welding (6G),
catering, mason, Korean, Arabic, canton, Japanese language and others.