Law News
Migrants demand proper compensation
On 7 April, 2012, a press conference was held by Survivors Foundation on how the deceived and tormented employees face harassment in pursuing complaints and getting justice/compensation when they file complaints against foreign employers/institutions.
In the press conference, Selina Begum and Josna spoke about foreign institutions they were sent to in Abu Dhabi in 2010 via recruiting agency named T.M. Overseas (R.L. 498) by providing them exemption certificate from Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET). By going there, they had to face mental and physical torture, and they also suffered from financial losses. After coming back to Bangladesh, they filed a written complaint at BMET on 8 May, 2011. On the basis of their complaint, the Director General of BMET formed a group of two investigation officers to investigate on the matter. On 16 June 2011, they presented our complaint against the recruiting agency at the first hearing in the cell of Director Mr Abdul Matin Sarker and Assistant Deputy Director Mr Enamul Haq. In the very same way, 2nd, 3rd and 4th hearing was conducted. After a long time of inspection, a decision was passed that each complainant should be compensated by the recruiting agency with a sum of Tk. 20,000/=.
The compensation of only Tk. 20,000/ per person was in favour of the recruiting agency as such it was in favour of the whole fraudulent group because this is a very small amount for them to pay. All the physical and mental torture along with the financial losses suffered by the complainants was worth only Tk. 20, 000. Do we call this justice?
BMET Citizen's Charter provides that if the workers do not get jobs after going abroad then the recruiting agency must pay all the expenses to bring them back and also provide them adequate compensation as it is required that the recruiting agency sign a declaration form stating such. Other provisions of the Charter also provide that justice must be served to such tortured complainants. Can we term the compensation of only Tk. 20,000 as justice? Against this decision, the complainants again tried to communicate with the BMET but no answer was provided to the complainants. Similar stories were heard from other victims as well.
The panel at the press conference urged that just compensation must be secured for the tortured workers.
-From Law Desk.
