Migrant workers forced into quandary over flight home

As if migrant workers are not already suffering enough due to unemployment and underpayment/non-payment of salaries during the pandemic, those in Malaysia have now been put in the middle of a brand new dilemma—that too by the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) and the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. CAAB, as reported in this daily, had issued a circular on August 16 stating that "Bangladeshi citizens have to be fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus 14 days before the travel date for their return home by flights." It also said that those who were not fully vaccinated would need special authorisation from the Bangladesh foreign ministry in order to be allowed to fly back home.

Naturally, this caused migrants in Malaysia to crowd the Bangladesh High Commission offices. However, once there, they were reportedly turned away by officials who claimed that the travellers would not need any special approvals to fly back to Bangladesh. Some officials even said that the CAAB circular had been withdrawn. But when Bangladesh's deputy high commissioner in Malaysia was contacted by The Daily Star, he contradicted this claim, saying the circular remains effective, and that there must have been some miscommunication about it.

The deputy high commissioner has since assured us that an announcement would be made clarifying that migrant workers will need to be fully vaccinated before they can travel to Bangladesh. However, we must ask why and how the misinformation—about migrants being allowed to substitute a special approval from the foreign ministry for full vaccination—came to be placed in the CAAB's circular.

Do instances such as these not signal to the neglect with which issues of Bangladeshi migrants abroad are handled by the authorities here? Because of this lack of coordination between the CAAB and Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, our migrants in Malaysia, who have been waiting for months to come home (many of whom have lost their jobs or work permits recently, or just come out of jail) are now facing unnecessary hassles. Some are having to expend money on hotel stays as the process of returning to Bangladesh has been made so complicated.

   We would urge the authorities at home and in Malaysia to coordinate with each other before issuing such notices, so that migrants do not get caught in the middle of such confusions. We would also ask them to make it easier for Bangladeshis to return home, perhaps by reverting to the previous process of undergoing PCR tests to detect Covid-19 and obtaining a negative certificate and then quarantining for 14 days once they are in Bangladesh.