With the expiry of the entry deadline for foreign workers on Friday, 31 May 2024, Malaysia closed its doors to workers from all source countries including Bangladesh. In a desperate bid to reach the destination on time, thousands of job seekers gathered at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on that day and waited there till the last moment for a chance to fly but it is utterly disheartening that several thousands of them failed to embark on the journey to Malaysia despite having all necessary documents including visas as recruiting agents did not supply them with the much sought after travel tickets.

This shattered the dreams of these hapless workers who staked everything they could manage in an attempt to change their lot. What happened to them is just another episode of fraudulence that aspirant migrant workers are very often subjected to in the name of manpower export.

In most of the cases, migrant workers usually belong to poor and lower middle strata of the society. Having no prospect of suitable employment inside the country, they make desperate attempts to find a job elsewhere in the world; and to make it happen they sell whatever moveable or immoveable assets they might have or borrow money from others, quite often on unequal terms. Once they fail to land in the dreamland after spending the last farthing or do not get the promised job, they are simply ruined and pushed down to utter destitution, from where they hardly manage to come out. The process of manpower export in the country has frequently proven to be a route to pauperisation for many.

Now, what about the future of these workers who gave lakhs of taka to the recruiting agents? Who will ensure that they will get back the money? It is the responsibility of the government to make sure that our aspirant workers are not cheated in anyway; but they have utterly failed to protect the interest of the workers in most of the cases - failed to the extent where it even resulted in the loss of the country's second largest job market. The authorities cannot therefore shirk their responsibility to punish the fraudsters, recover the money and hand over the same to the workers so that they may repay at least a part of the money they borrowed.