Some 41 workers, who were discriminated and terminated by their Malaysian employer, received around Tk 10 million as compensation after a protracted legal fight. Those of you who have seen My Migrant Soul and saw the plight of the workers in Malaysia, will be able to relate to what a great legal victory this is. Again, where the government is supposed to stand up for the migrant workers’ rights, it is doing nada. It is the NGOs like Shishuk and Tanaganita which are coming forward to work on cases like this. UK’s migrant workers alone contributed almost 300 million pound to Bangladesh economy in 2003. Add the contributions of the middle east workers and you will see how these people are the biggest contributors to foreign exchange reserve that our finance minister is so proud about. Yet, he is not willing to do anything about their horrific plight. Recently, sickened by all these a few of these workers in Jordan attacked the Bangladeshi consulate. We can only imagine what made them do it. We, at drishtipat, always tried to highlight this issue by film screening and portal sites. However, we have been unable to come up with any project. For some reason, among the educated migrants to North America and Europe, this issue does not appeal that greatly.

Admit it, when you saw the lack of English skills and nervous migrant workers at the Dhaka airport, you were annoyed. You were bothered that they are taking too much time at the queue. When they sat next to you,
at Emirates or Gulf Air, you were upset at their lack of ettiquette. But none of us cared to think a bit deeper about the moving story of journey that each of them brought with them.

If you have a spare moment, read this piece by Afsan bhai called “Are Mishkins people too”. It will make you think twice the next time you see these people in the airport.

For many survival is impossible in Bangladesh and thus we have the expatriate crowd. But they are not the non-resident Bangladeshis of the USA and other developed countries including a few in the Middle East who often write to The Daily Star. They are mostly the desperate poor who populate the lowest end of the job market anywhere in the world. They are a new category of people, “The Miskins”. They will not stay back but send their money home and often can’t even read our paper.

Neglected by the national authorities, hounded by the police of their countries of work, they are the most despised and denigrated lot anywhere who provide the valuable foreign exchange with which we make foreign trips as VIPs.

For them making a trip abroad is part of the survival strategy, learnt over centuries. They have no option to make some decent money except to leave home and return. They are not Chand Sawdagar but his boat assistant who never gets mentioned in myths.

Unless you have seen them where they work you won’t know to what depth of indignity they are made to descend into to make money to send home.

“I ran for few miles across the jungle to escape capture by the police. Finally, I reached Kuala Lumpur after three months. I had spent one lakh to reach there. I found work in construction site carrying bricks a few months after I landed. It’s black market work. But police raided the site and I was arrested. After three months in jail I was let go and deported. I went with a lakh and came home empty.”

This was Malaysia from where lakhs of working Bangladeshis are going to be forced out because the Bangladeshi officials didn’t bother to cover the interest of these ordinary Bangladeshis. They are going to be thrown into jails and then shipped home. Media will pick up a few sob stories and then the episode will be over. Hopes generated will be crushed and some hopes will never flower. Even as I write I feel the silliness of my language, the inadequacy of words to express what it means to have no future and no multiple visas to a western country.

Another good but long read is the recent HRW report