Safe migration for women stressed

Safe migration of women is very important for improving their living and livelihood conditions besides boosting the country’s foreign remittance.

Integrated efforts of all the government and non-government organisations concerned can be the crucial means of safe, protected and dignified migration of women.

All the authorities concerned should come forward and work together so that none dare to hamper the sector of women migration.

Government officials and other stakeholders came up with the observation while addressing a roundtable meeting titled “Women Workers: Migration Issues and Solutions” at Hotel Warisan in Rajshahi on Thursday.

On behalf of its project ‘Women’s Labour Migration in the South Asia - Middle East Corridor’, Association for Community Development (ACD) organised the meeting supported by Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police Towhidul Arif, Police Inspector Mohtarema Ashrafi Khanom and former chairman of Rajshahi Education Board Prof Dipkendranath Das addressed the meeting as resource persons, while ACD Executive Director Salima Sarwar was in the chair.

ACD Programme Director Sharmin Subrina gave an overview on the issue during her keynote presentation and Project Coordinator Subrata Kumar Paul moderated the discussion.

In the meeting, some enforced returnees narrated their tragic and horrifying stories of tortures both physically and mentally and losing all their properties in their own country because their masters did not pay their promised salary rather were detained illegally.

They all migrated for work selling out everything in their own country.

Referring to the ills of the unsafe migration the discussants unequivocally called for skilled manpower besides safeguarding the interests of the migrants.

They also stressed the need for proactive roles of embassy men to look into the interest and welfare of Bangladeshi women migrants besides re-employment after they return to the country empty handed.

In his remarks, Prof Dipkendranath Das said the respective embassies need to strengthen monitoring of the agreement between the employers and the employees. There needs to be a database accounting for the number of forced returning migrant workers.