To bring economic solvency to her family, Shahnaz, went to Saudi Arabia in 2018, but before she could fulfil her desire, the woman took her own life.
Her dead body was brought home last January. Her family does not know why she committed suicide. There is little effort to find out why women workers abroad commit suicide. As per the expatriate welfare desk at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, 44 women workers took their own lives after they went to work abroad.
As per the expatriate welfare desk, the government bears all cost of bringing back the dead and provides financial assistance for burial.
Many families do not want to take back the dead bodies and others don’t even apply to have dead bodies brought back home. Therefore, there aren’t an accurate number of people who die while working overseas.
In January and February, 23 dead bodies have come back from overseas and of them, seven committed suicide. In the last three years, 294 female workers died overseas.
Of the total number of dead in the last three years, 44 committed suicide while 110 had strokes. The most number of dead, standing at 112 came back from Saudi Arabia.
On the other hand, 26 came back from UAE, 34 from Oman, 42 from Lebanon and 62 from Jordan.
Bangladesh mission in Saudi Arabia is concerned over the death of women workers. Last year, a woman called Kalpana committed suicide in the embassy’s safe-house. Officials say that she was mentally imbalanced but the cause of her psychological condition was not known.
A woman worker has talked of physical and psychological torture while working overseas. A woman worker, Nasima, says that after landing in Saudi Arabia she was kept in a locked house by her recruiting agency where she along with others faced inhuman torture.
After five months, she was given appointment and had to work in a family of 11 members.
“From cooking to cleaning, I had to do everything without any break and if I felt tired, the owner used to beat me with a stick.”
I was left half-starved and deprived of proper medical treatment when ill, she lamented.
Executive director of Expatriate Women Worker Association Sumaiya Islam says: “No one goes to Saudi Arabia to die, they are killed in some way or the other; the torturous working conditions, behavior of employers force women to take their own lives.”
BRAC Migration head, Shariful Hassan, said: “Torture may be a reason for the suicides; unless a person is driven to the extreme, she does not take her life.”