Home ›› 30 Jan 2022 ›› Front
Shirin Akter, 23, was working as a sewing operator at Vision Garments in Savar for a monthly salary of Tk 10,500. She recently left the job as she was preparing to fly to Jordan for the same work where her salary would be thrice as much.
“I married a colleague two years ago, and he migrated to Jordan last year. Now I want to go there so that we can live together and also make more money,” she told The Business Post.
Nazmuj Jaman Neela from Narsingdi works at Siraj Garment in Mirpur. She said Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited (BOESL) assured her that her salary would be Tk 30,000, including overtime, in Jordan.
Neela and Shirin visited BOESL last week for Jordanian visa processing. Like them, hundreds of female apparel workers waiting to fly to Jordan with work visas visit BOESL every day. Such a visa costs Tk 16,500 if processed through BOESL.
Experts say Jordan has become a top destination for skilled Bangladeshi apparel workers in the last decade. 1,98,148 Bangladeshis migrated to Jordan from 2001 to 2021, as per the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET).
BOESL Assistant General Manager (business development) Noman Chowdhury told The Business Post 13,643 Bangladeshi female workers went to Jordan last year.
“We have a target to send over 20,000 workers this year, but Jordan wants more,” he said.
He also said Jordan complies with the international labour rules in many aspects, including salary, accommodation, airfare, and healthcare support.
Migrants in Jordan get a three-year visa, but it is renewable, he said.
“We get regular feedback from Bangladeshis working in Jordanian factories. The Middle Eastern country is the first preference of skilled female garment workers from Bangladesh,” Noman explained.
Officials of BOESL say Jordan’s clothing industry has grown in the past few years. There are more than 30 readymade garment factories in Jordan, and Bangladeshis have shares in three or four of them. Most of the factory owners are Chinese and Indian.
BOESL allows female garment workers wishing to go to Jordan to attend primary interviews at Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib Mohila Technical Training Centre, Bangladesh German Technical Training Centre, and Bangladesh-Korea Technical Training Centre – all three located in Dhaka. Jordanian delegates remain present during the interviews.
According to the Bangladesh Bank, remittances sent by Bangladeshi migrants in Jordan reached $24,777 million in the last fiscal year, a 36.1 per cent increase from the year before.
In the first quarter of FY22, the largest amount of remittance ($1,304.13 million) was sent by workers in Saudi Arabia, which was 24.11 per cent of the total remittance sent during that period. In FY21, remittance sent by Bangladeshis in Jordan was 1.45 per cent of the total figure.
During the July-September period of 2021, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, 73,992 Bangladeshis migrated, including 13,403 females. More than 10 lakh Bangladeshi female migrants were employed around the world between 1991 and 2021.
Also, from 1991 to 2021, Saudi Arabia was the destination for the highest number of Bangladeshi female migrants (4,06,837), followed by Jordan (1,75,930), the United Arab Emirates (1,32,353), Lebanon (1,07,363), and Oman (97,153), according to BMET.
Besides, the number of females migrating to Jordan was 20,449 in 2017, 9,724 in 2018, 20,347 in 2019, 3,769 in 2020, and 13,816 in 2021. Bangladesh started sending skilled garment workers to Jordan in large numbers in 2010 through a bilateral agreement.
Migration experts say Saudi Arabia is the top Bangladeshi women manpower receiving country, but these migrants mostly work there as domestic helpers. Many Bangladeshi women working as domestic workers in the oil-rich country have faced sexual abuse, torture, and harassment in recent years.
