Back home with heart broken

Taslima Begum

It was a double blow for Taslima Begum.
A housewife from Faridpur, she went to Lebanon with high hopes of building her children a better future.
Her decision to go abroad proved a costly one. Without much consideration, she gave all her savings and those of her day-labourer husband to some middlemen before flying to Lebanon in October 2011.
Now she returned to Bangladesh almost empty-handed.
During her stay in Lebanon, she went through ordeals that shattered her hopes.
"I spent Tk 95,000 to go to Lebanon,” Taslima said while talking to reporters at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Friday. “Besides, I had to pay extra to other brokers in Lebanon as they managed a job for me there.”
The brokers had promised her a job that would pay £200 a month but she was offered a £125 job.
Other than this, she faced no problem during her first 37 days in Lebanon, which led her to believe her dreams would come true someday.
However, her existence took an unexpected turn when she injured herself by falling down the stairs of her employer's house.
“I was admitted to a local hospital,” she said.
Her employer wanted to sack her as she became unable to work. But she was back to work in a few days.
Taslima worked in the house of the employer for 10 months although she was threatened with dismissal several times.
After arriving in Lebanon, she worked for 15 months at Saudia city.
“The last five months were miserable as I did not get my wages properly,” Taslima said. “I had to switch from one job to another.”
“My last employer, a woman who had been in the army, tortured me, confining me to her house and keeping me unfed for long as I wanted to return to Bangladesh,” said Taslima. “Perhaps she did not like Bangalees.”
Taslima has a baby son and a daughter whom she had left in Bangladesh.
Despite working for around 10 to 12 hours every day, her income was small and was not sufficient to support herself and her family, said Taslima with a note of frustration.
Left without options, she decided to leave the Middle Eastern country. But it was next to impossible for an illiterate woman like her as there was no office of Bangladesh embassy there.
“First I informed my brokers in Lebanon and then my husband that I was kept in confinement there,” said Taslima.
Her brokers, who have an office in Lebanon, had offered her the job under an agreement with her employer. Therefore, they threatened her when she informed them that she wanted to return to Bangladesh.
Taslima was lucky -- unlike many such migrant workers -- that she received financial assistance from MGH Group, a multinational company, after returning home.
“If I had failed to come by today, I would be an illegal migrant now and would have to face trial since my residence permit expired on January 24,” she said.
Following a report published in Bangla daily Jugantar last year, MGH Group contacted the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training to repatriate her from Lebanon.
The BMET managed to repatriate her with the assistance of the Bangladesh Embassy in Jordan.
Taslima still hopes that she will work overseas, “maybe in a better country”, and that her family will see a better future.