DHAKA, June 06, 2020 (BSS) Remittances sent by around nine lakh migrant women labourers are playing a huge role in boosting countrys ever-growing economy.
Around 90 thousand women workers went abroad, mainly in Middle Eastern countries from January to October 2019.
Of these, around 54 thousand went to Saudi Arabia, 16,471 went to Jordan, 10,496 went to Oman and 3,241 went to Qatar in this time.
Fozila Khatun, mother of two, used to work as a housemaid in Dhaka and run her family with her hard-earned money.
But now she works at a garment factory in Jordan and earns around Taka 50 thousand a month.
Her family is now doing very well by the money she sends from abroad.
Like Fozila, hundreds of Bangladeshi women work in that country.
According to Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment (MoEWOE), the number Bangladeshi women workers going abroad is rapidly increasing and they are playing a significant role in enhancing countrys economy.
More and more women are registering themselves to go abroad to work as they can go there free of cost.
The employer bears the transport cost and the workers can ensure their job beforehand and can take appropriate training for this.
Apart from garment industries and housekeeping, Bangladeshi women workers will be made fit for other type of jobs as well and the government is taking special initiatives in this regard.
Immigration experts find the recent jump in number of expatriate women workers positive and said if they can take proper training before reaching working countries and remain alert and aware, they can keep themselves at bay from different risks and can change their financial status quite easily.
They however, called for strong monitoring from local high commissions of Bangladesh and government and said this is the time, when we should emphasize on sending women workers in different sectors other than housekeeping.
Government has taken initiative to develop skills of abroad going women workers and giving them language training so that they do not have to face any problem in their job, said member of parliamentary standing committee on MoEWOE Shamsun Nahar Bhuiyan, MP.
As per the statistics provided by Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), women workers started going abroad in 1991, with 2,189 workers went in that year.
Now around one lakh Bangladeshi women go aborad to work each year.
Around 1.27 crore Bangladeshis work in 163 countries around the world, of which 8.87 lakh women went abroad till October, 2019.
Of the total number of expatriate women workers, 3.32 lakh work in Saudi Arabia.
Now there is no irregularity in sending women workers abroad.
Earlier many interested women wanted to hide their real age to go abroad, but now we scrutinize all their documents like national identity card, birth certificate and passport. We provide them skill development and language trainings.
Girls younger than 18 cannot go abroad to work and she has to be 25 for joining work as housemaid.
Government is running different campaigns to raise awareness in this regard, MoEWOE official Jannatul Ferdous Rupa said.
Rupa further added that there is no scope of taking the country forward economically by leaving the women population jobless.
So government has taken different initiatives to ease the process of foreign employment of women to develop the country economically and socially.