THE issue of migrant workers’ wage theft in destination countries has remained unattended despite repeated calls from migrant workers and civic groups. Migrant workers and rights activists at a public hearing that the Refugee and Migratory Movement Research Unit organised on December 22 have raised concern about government inaction in reclaiming the stolen wages. The migrant workers who returned, some employed for more than a decade, said that employers did not pay them due wages for months or paid less than what was promised. A wage theft victim of Cumilla at the hearing said that his job was unjustly terminated in Dubai in April 2020 and his employer refused to pay his dues. Another migrant worker from Saudi Arabia said that he had been hired for 800 riyals a month in March 2020, but the employer did not give him any work or payment for the first three months during the Covid pandemic. The women workers, who returned, especially from the Middle East, had similar experiences. The demand for a redressal of migrant workers’ wage theft claims with destination countries is, therefore, more than justified.

The issue received public attention during the pandemic when thousands of migrants lost job and returned home empty-handed. A Bangladesh Civil Society for Migrants survey shows that 1,160 Bangladeshi migrant workers who returned home from six Gulf countries after February 2020 had lost, on an average, about Tk 1.8 lakh in wages and entitlements. Of them, 67.7 per cent said that they had not received due wages regularly after February 2020. Economic exploitation of migrant workers is, however, not unique to the pandemic. It is common for employers to hold the travel and identity documents of workers and force them to continue to work even after the end of the contract. The workers have little option but to comply as they are threatened that their wages in arrears and service benefits would not be cleared if they did not comply. Migrant workers are robbed of their wages and entitlements even after their death. Attempts on part of employers or authorities in destination countries to promptly categorise the death of workers as ‘not work-related’ or ‘natural’ closes the possibility for the family of deceased workers to claim compensation and allows employers to avoid taking responsibility for repatriating the body or facing legal consequences for rights violation.

The case of migrant workers’ wage theft highlights successive governments’ failure in protecting the labour force from economic exploitation. It also sheds light on the flawed labour standards in destination countries. The government must, therefore, immediately take up the wage theft claims with regional forums and during bilateral meetings with destination countries through the United Nations agencies concerned. Bangladesh needs to diplomatically engage with destination countries and international labour rights organisations to develop legal instruments that would create avenues to address such cross-border violations of labour and human rights of migrants.