Manpower recruiters on Monday demanded that the government ensure Covid vaccination for outbound Bangladeshi workers.
The vaccination programme will help workers fly to destination countries, which have imposed Covid-induced restrictions on the entry of the migrant workers, without any trouble.
The whole process will help the recruiters run hassle-free business since they are facing difficulties in sending workers abroad due to the restrictions, prompting them to demand vaccination for outbound workers.
Female Worker Recruiting Agencies Association of Bangladesh (FWRAAB), a platform for manpower recruiting agencies, made the demand at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity.
They suggested importing single-dose vaccines, like the Netherlands based Johnson and Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, on a priority basis for outbound workers as those would save time for the workers.
They also requested the government to allocate 50,000 imported Pfizer vaccines for the workers immediately.
FWRAAB Secretary General Mohammed Mohiuddin presented a written speech in which he said Covid vaccines were not available for all people in the country.
Only people at the age of 40and above can get a chance to complete online registration for vaccination, whereas the age of outbound workers is generally between 21 and 40 years, he said.
Recently, the Saudi government made the seven-day on-arrival hotel quarantine mandatory. Because of higher airfare and quarantine cost, it is almost impossible for the workers to go to their job destination.
Although the government was sharing the quarantine cost by giving Tk 25,000 each, it meets a small portion of the total cost, he said.
If the vaccination was ensured, the government can save the extra cost of quarantine, he added.
An estimated 70,000 new workers, who were in the process of going to Saudi Arabia, could not depart Bangladesh because of extra quarantine costs, according to manpower recruiters.
Bangladesh has sent more than 13-million workers abroad since 1976.
Of them, Saudi Arabia has hired about 4.2-million, statistics available with the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training showed.
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