Cheated by local agents and exploited and incarcerated abroad, around 340 Bangladeshi migrant workers have been detained again, once they returned home recently, migrants’ rights activists have observed, terming their detention violation of rights.
According to official records, 81 out of about 110 Bangladeshis, who were stranded in Vietnam, and some 255 others who completed their jail terms or received royal pardon in the Middle East, were brought back home and taken to jail after mandatory quarantine in about two months.
Some of these ‘returnees’have been accused of anti-state activities while others were blamed for tarnishing the country’s image abroad as they were detained.
However, none of them were brought back to Bangladesh under any extradition arrangement. Also, no recruiting agents who the migrants alleged cheated with them were implicated in the cases filed so far in these connections.
Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) Executive Director Professor CR Abrar questioned the grounds of arresting the workers and their imprisonment without crimes at home.
“It’s clearly unlawful,” he said arguing that had the workers violated laws in the countries of their destination, they could have been brought to book in those countries.
At least 81 Bangladeshi workers who were trafficked to Vietnam returned home by a chartered plane two weeks ago. They were arrested and sent to jail on Tuesday.
Manpower recruiters sent the workers with tourist visas to Vietnam after promising safe migration with jobs, the victims and their families said.
In fact, a total of 112 stranded workers were taken to Bangladesh from Vietnam on August 18 and of them 107 are Bangladeshis. Exploited by recruiting agents, they protested against employers and recruiting agencies and demanded their repatriation immediately.
Among them, 81 were detained after 14 days of quarantine in Dhaka. Turag Police Station Sub-Inspector Md Anwarul Islam produced them before a metropolitan magistrate, showing them arrested under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
Upon prayers for keeping them in jail until the probe is completed, the court sent 81 to jail and freed 26 others. Two other migrant workers, who returned from Qatar, also landed in jail the same day.
In early July, some 255 Bangladeshi migrants were arrested and sent to Kashimpur jail, on completion of mandatory quarantine period in Diabari, Uttara. They came back from Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain during the pandemic period.
The police claimed that these migrants were detained as they have ‘tarnished the image of the country abroad’. The police also expressed apprehensions that if these people are released, they may commit crimes, including murder, robbery, terrorism and sabotage.
The police sources also say they may be charged for committing ‘anti-government and anti-state’ activities, including violent acts.
Most of the detainees were accused of ‘being undocumented’ and for petty narcotic offences in the destination countries and have received royal pardon after having served half of the punishment or more.
Some of them served punishment for not abiding by telecom rules; presumably for illegally selling talk times – something which is a common practice in Bangladesh and not considered as any offence, according to a statement issued by Bangladesh Civil Society for Migrants (BCSM). It demanded immediate release of the workers.
A victim who was freed after quarantine period told The Financial Express that all of them were cheated by recruiting agents. After landing in Vietnam, they found them as captive made by the middle men and they were sold several times, the victim said.
Following torturous experiences, the workers protested against the Bangladeshi and Vietnamese brokers and manpower recruiters.“So, how can the arrest be justified when they are victims?” he said. Tortured physically by a broker named Mustafa, the worker alleged, “I am still bearing wounds.”
Each worker spent a huge amount between Tk 400,000 and Tk 500,000 as migration cost, the worker said. He expressed his views that his colleagues were arrested as they held demonstration in front of Bangladesh Embassy in Hanoi, to protest against the malpractices of manpower recruiters.
However, the recruiters managed to keep themselves out of touch due to their nexuswith powerful quarters, according to allegations.
In favour of detention of workers, the respective police officer mentioned that when the coronavirus cases surged worldwide, their sentences were commuted and they were sent back to Bangladesh.
Dwelling on the issue of the country’s image, CR Abrar said if the image is tarnished, it is because of acts like extra-judicial killing and imprisonment of a parliamentarian in another country because of human trafficking allegation.
Head of Brac's Migration Programme Shariful Hasan said the allegations against the workers are baseless. “It’s a misdemeanour to the helpless workers.Through such acts, the dishonest manpower recruiting agents and their brokers rather get a green signal to continue their illegal activities,” he observed.
Shakirul Islam, chairman of Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme (OKUP) added that certain quarters that are involved in unethical migration process acted in implicating the police cases, so that they could skip punishment.