DHAKA: Mohammad Khalil had big dreams of lifting his family out of poverty when he boarded a plane bound for the United Arab Emirates a year ago.
Like many Bangladeshis, he used his life savings, including $2,600 from the sale of his laundry shop, to travel to the Middle East where he could earn much more than in his own country to support his two young children.
But instead of staying for five years like he planned, which would have set him up comfortably with a house in Bangladesh, the 35-year-old arrived back in Dhaka this week and is now desperately searching for work.
“My supervisor in Dubai came to us one morning and said we had lost our jobs at the laundry plant where we worked. There were 50 of us sacked that day and within hours we were on a plane,” said Khalil.
He told AFP he was unaware of the global economic downturn but knew that an increasing number of Bangladeshis were coming home from the Middle East and often given just a couple of hours’ notice.
In Malaysia, where unemployment is rising, the government this week revoked visas for 55,000 Bangladeshis, most of whom had planned to work in factories there.
