The government has no statistics how women workers return every year and what are the reasons behind their return.
The private organisations which monitor women migration felt that many of the returnees face severe harassment in different recipient countries including Saudi Arabia, where in the recent times a good number of harassed women returned.
Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) statistics department official Md Nasiruzzaman said, “We don’t have any women returnee data.”
On an average 200 women workers return every month, says Brac Migration Programme, a private entity.
The chief of the Programme Shariful Hasan told Bangla Tribune, at least 5,000 women returned from Saudi Arabia in last 2-3 years and a good number of them experienced some kind of harassment and torture.
He said, “One is too many and even one woman is harassed we should highlight it.”
Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agency (Baira) Joint Secretary Shamim Ahmed Chowdhury Noman said, “It is difficult to say how many women return.”
He, however, said three or four years back there was a government statistics which showed 5,000 women returned.
They returned for many reasons and Bangladesh embassies in recipient countries should have a mechanism to monitor the returnees, he added.
Bangladesh sends workers to 18 countries including Saudi Arab, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar and Oman. According to the BMET, in 2017 about 0.12 million women job seekers went to different countries.
The women workers were not allowed to go abroad alone till 2003 when the rules were relaxed.