JEDDAH: According to a report published last month in Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star, over the past year the number of Bangladeshi workers heading to Saudi Arabia for employment has plummeted.
The article cited the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training in Bangladesh stating that 8,594 workers were received in Saudi Arabia from January to July of 2009 compared to 24,564 workers received six months earlier. Other official statistics cited in the same article stated that the number of Bangladeshi migrant workers stood at 250,900 for the first six months of this year opposed to 464,000 during the same period in 2008.
A visit in April to the Kingdom by Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina Wajed concluded with Saudi Arabia vowing to improve regulations with the Asian nation, especially regarding to the recruitment of Bangladeshi manpower. Keeping its promise, the Kingdom’s Council of Ministers in April issued a new law allowing Bangladeshi workers to change jobs whether for reason of low salary or in order to further stay employed following the completion of their employment contracts.
Nonetheless, the article blamed the drop in employment of its countrymen on the Saudi policy requiring the maintenance regulations balancing the number of workers from the nation with laborers from other counties currently in the Kingdom.
Another major motive for the fall in recruitment, the article said, was the fault of the local media in Saudi Arabia that they say has allowed foreign journalists from countries such as India and Nepal (who usually compete for labor in the country) to launch a smear campaign against Bangladeshi workers in the hopes of creating room for employment for their own countrymen.
“If any crime by Bangladeshi workers is spotted in Saudi Arabia, it receives widespread media coverage there, whereas misdeeds by other nationals largely remain unnoticed,” Tasneem Siddiqui, chairperson of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit in Bangladesh, was reported as saying, adding that she also blames Bangladeshi missions in the Middle East for not doing more public relations work to promote its manpower.
To verify these claims, Arab News contacted the Bangladeshi Embassy in Riyadh and spoke to Haroon Or-Rashid, who is in charge of labor issues, who said the media exaggerates the bad behavior of Bangladeshis.
“They had been unjustly portrayed as a purveyor of criminal activities within the Kingdom, and this sort of generalization is a gross injustice to the vast majority of the more than one million Bangladeshi workers who are law abiding and peaceful citizens,” he said. Or-Rashid continued by adding that despite this they do not blame journalists from particular countries for the organized media campaign, but said that it is unfortunate that some in the media have focused on the misdeeds of a few to tarnish the image of the entire Bangladeshi community. The official also stated that he agrees that anyone committing a crime should be punished, and he confirmed that the embassy has been cooperative with the Saudi government by warning members of the community not to violate the laws of the host country.
Or-Rashid added that the ambassador has declared that the embassy will show “zero tolerance “ to nationals involved in illegal activities.
“We have passed the message on to our nationals in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Or-Rashid said he believes that some criminal activity is the result of the low wages paid to Bangladeshis, the nonpayment of their salaries and the lack of benefits, such as vacation time, health insurance or covering the cost of renewal of work visas.
Citing the new initiatives currently under way to improve the reputation of Bangladeshi manpower, Or-Rashid said: “Both the embassy and the consulate general in Jeddah have undertaken various programs to encourage community members to abide by local rules.”
“During our meetings with the Bangladeshi community and during consular visits to different parts of the Kingdom we conduct motivational programs to encourage respect for local laws and systems,” Or-Rashid said, adding also that Saudi authorities are regularly briefed about initiatives of the Bangladeshi government to upgrade the level of skill of the workers and to educate and motivate them to follow local laws, systems and traditions.
“In addition, the Bangladeshi government is focusing on making efforts to upgrade the labor skills of those seeking employment overseas by opening a number of training centers and also running orientation classes for workers destined to the Kingdom in order to orient workers about Saudi law and cultural traditions,” he said.
