The woes of women migrant workers

Reports of Bangladeshi women falling victim to sexual and other kinds of abuses in the Middle East are resurfacing in the media despite human rights activists and governments calling for labour reforms in some countries in the region. According to a leading Bangla daily, last year, in Saudi Arabia alone, at least 150 women workers were tortured physically or psychologically by their employers to the extent where some of them had to jump off the roof to escape. When they did not oblige to the debauched demands of their employers, and sometimes of their friends, they had their hair pulled off, limbs broken, or were simply set on fire. The conditions are not any better in Jordan, UAE, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Why do we keep sending our women to these countries? Can we not learn something from Indonesia, the Philippines and India that have stopped sending women as domestic workers to these countries?

We want women to have more job opportunities but not at the cost of dignity and respect. There must be recourses available for women workers if they are victims of abuse. The Ministries of Expatriate Welfare, External Affairs and Labour must work together to mitigate the untold suffering of women workers and migrant workers in general. More resources should be allocated for skills development so that women migrant workers can get better jobs. And the manpower exporting agencies that keep sending workers for monetary gains alone should be better regulated.

But these actions will be merely scratching the surface unless these rich, powerful countries take active measures to ensure that women migrant workers are treated with dignity.