Nur Nahar, a resident of Narsingdi, who went to Saudi Arabia for work, is missing; she had gone overseas with proper documents from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training, BMET.

She went to the Kingdom country on February 2 last year; though she went through government channels, her father, Haji Nur Nabi, states that they haven’t received any news of her for eight months.

“We have been told by others that my daughter has been sold off.”

This is distressing because expatriate welfare and overseas employment minister, Nurul Islam had always emphasized on using government channels to go overseas to work in order to ensure security of women workers.

“If we cannot resist middlemen then incidents of persecution overseas will only rise,” the minister recently warned.

He further underline that those who went through middlemen often found that they were hoodwinked and were eventually sent to safe homes to be repatriated to Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, the Nur Nahar disappearance case has triggered a question: why is it so difficult to trace a worker who had gone through government channels?

Nur Nahar obtained clearance from the Narsingdi district employment and manpower office.

Md Shahidul Islam, official of the Narsingdi office, says: “all relevant papers were given to Nur Nahar’s father and he was told to contact the head office; if the main office can’t trace her, then we cannot do anything.”

We are pressuring the recruiting agency to bring her back, he added.

Haji Nur Nabi went to both BMET and the ministry though neither could provide any satisfactory answer to the whereabouts of his daughter.

Earlier, he told Bangla Tribune: “initially, when Nur Nahar worked in Madina, I talked to her a few times; she complained of mistreatment.”

Despite regular torture, she worked and received her monthly payment, the distressed father said.

“But after four months she simply vanished!”

The elderly man had sent his daughter to turn the wheel of fortune but now is going from one ministry to another seeking information of her present condition.

Nur Nahar has a husband and child and went overseas to secure a future for her family.

The relevant embassy in Dhaka has been given a letter with the request to bring back the female worker.

The hopelessness compounds for Nur Nahar’s family as Gulf Overseas in Banani, the agency through which Nur Nahar went to Saudi Arabia is in the dark about the woman’s current status.

When Bangla Tribune contacted Mostak Hossain, proprietor of Gulf Overseas, on May 27, no concrete answer was forthcoming.

He said: please give me two days; I will let you know.

Though 17 days have passed, the recruiting agency could not provide any reliable information.

Several attempts to contact Mostak Hossain failed as repeated phone calls from Bangla Tribune were rejected.

Meanwhile, Selim Reza, director general of BMET, did not answer his phone when called.