Tariq A. Al-Maeena

 

Shamsul Huda, a resident Bangladeshi, is convinced that the Bangladesh government is breathing a sigh of relief after the recent announcement that Saudi Arabia is lifting the ban on the new recruitment and the transfer of sponsorship of Bangladeshi workers.



To bolster his contention, he points to the meeting recently between the Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka with the Saudi ambassador to Bangladesh, Dr. Abdullah Al-Baseeri during which the prime minister extended her gratitude to the Saudi government for the withdrawal of the restriction.



Huda says that Bangladeshis working here have long craved for free movement in the Saudi labor market in case of the closure of their companies or to transfer to a better job. For the past six years, a ban on the recruitment or transfer of Bangladeshi nationals was imposed, something not done with expatriates from other countries.



Because of these restrictions, he contends that a large number of Bangladeshis became illegal residents "since they went into hiding to evade deportation mainly after the closure of their companies. As a result, during the recent amnesty period nearly one million Bangladeshis either rectified their status or returned home."



In trying to understand why the ban was put in place for the past six years, Huda believes that the government found a disproportionate number of Bangladeshis "increasingly involving themselves in petty crimes and affecting the peace in society."



It has been widely reported that the crux of the problem is said to be the restriction on the transfer of sponsorship and the visa trade for Bangladeshi workers by a number of unscrupulous people from both countries.



A Bangladeshi visa was selling for around SR 20,000, encouraging some locals to falsify documents to recruit more workers, although there were no definite jobs for them when they arrived in this country.



Upon arrival, these workers were left not only jobless but also without food and accommodation. Added to that was the pound of flesh that their wicked sponsors, "kafalat", extracted from them by making them pay a monthly sum under the threat of reporting them to the passport authorities. Unable to pay the "kafalat", most of these workers deserted their sponsors and went into hiding, surfacing long enough to earn a few riyals for their daily sustenance.



Like many, Huda believes that the visa trade should come to an end and that both governments should move quickly to finding solutions to this long-standing problem.  In his words, "Saudi Arabia has already licensed over a dozen large-scale companies, several of them have already come into being and others are on the anvil, to hire foreign workers with the aim of abolishing the individual sponsorship system which was introduced more than 60 years ago at the beginning of the oil boom era. The sponsorship system is now considered anachronistic and obsolete and draws fire from global human rights bodies and the International Labor Organization (ILO)."



The licensed recruitment companies have strength with a capital investment of SR100 million for each to protect the rights of workers and employers alike. Most importantly, there will be a representative of the National Society for Human Rights on the boards of these companies to look after the cause of workers. With this new drive, a sea of change is expected to come to the Kingdom’s entire recruitment system.



Meanwhile, concurrent with Saudi initiatives, Bangladesh is shredding old dogmas in exporting its workforce and is adopting a new method to dissuade middlemen from visa trading. This move has paid off and has proved to be effective as batches of workers have already been sent to Malaysia under the new system at a low personal cost of around SR1,000 for each.

 

Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia are understood to be closing in on a deal to implement this system. Under the new system, the Bangladesh government has set up a "data bank" to register jobseekers intended to migrate mainly to the GCC countries and nearly one million people have been selected based on the demands of the GCC markets. Now workers can also be identified with “Smart Cards” to ensure that they do not have any criminal records, a concern that has long been expressed by manpower importing countries like Saudi Arabia.



In addition, Bangladesh has undertaken intensive training programs with the twin objectives of honing the skills of registered workers in their respective job categories and of familiarizing them with the countries in which they will be deployed. Thus the manpower importing countries will be able to receive qualified Bangladeshis in the future. As Huda concludes, with tangible measures being put into effect by both governments, Bangladeshis are likely to be deployed in the Kingdom without the role of intermediaries which will help regain the confidence of their Saudi brethren and benefit the economies of both countries.



I have long argued that we Saudis should not generalize and brand nationals of any particular country be they Bangladeshis, Ethiopians or whatever, with a negative tag based on the actions of a few.  I also maintain that in some cases, desperation has forced some of those people toward the wrong path.  Let us for now bestow dignity on our guest workers, one and all.

– The author can be reached at talmaeena@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @talmaeena