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Pilot project to rehabilitate returning migrant workers


Published : 25 Feb 2020 08:44 PM | Updated : 06 Sep 2020 09:41 PM

The government has taken an initiative for the reconciliation to the Bangladeshi affected returnee workers from different countries with a view to rehabilitate them. As part of the initiative, the Wage Earners Board (WEB) under the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment, plans to launch a pilot project from next month.

The WEB officials concerned said that the pilot project aims to rehabilitate the overseas workers returning home in the society through a financial reconciliation programme. The rehabilitation and reconciliation process will be started immediately after the approval by the WEB, they said.

According to the WEB, as part of the pilot project, initially 15 districts have been selected. At the first phase, 100 male and 100 female affected returnee workers will be included for their reconciliation and Tk 2,00,00,000 has been allocated for project. The WEB officials said, those 15 districts have been selected based on the highest number of immigrants from those individual districts. The Expatriate Welfare Board will work for the data collection purposes. District wise lists of the workers will be prepared for a complete database. The Information Technology branches at the Airport and the Expatriate Welfare Board will also help them.

The sources in the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment and its Wage Earners Board (WEB) said, as part of their planning, they are considering to engage the Directorate of Women Affairs for the training to the affected women returnee workers. In this regard, a memorandum of understanding would be signed between them. The affected male returnee workers will also be provided with training. Both the male and female workers will be provided with a 45-day training on agricultural firming, sewing machines and on some other things. Officials concerned said if the pilot project is successful, another project will be taken for the reconciliation and rehabilitation for the workers countrywide.

Shariful Islam, a deputy director (Welfare) of the Expatriate Welfare Board, said, “We are going to take the initiative as part of a pilot project. The issue will be placed in the next meeting of WEB. The next board meeting is scheduled to be held in March and the working process will be started immediately after the board’s approval.”

“The project has been planned considering the competencies of the returnee workers. We want to implement the project as per their competency and their skills,” said the deputy director. It could be mentioned that there is no concrete information on how many workers have returned from different countries so far.

According to the immigration office in Dhaka, as many as 260,694 workers have returned from different countries, mainly from Saudi Arabia, only with travel pass in last 10 years from 2008 to 2018. Besides, as per the information received from the Ministry of Home Affairs, over 27,000 workers have recently returned only from the Saudi Arabia.