Dhaka may lift restriction on export of female workers

The government is thinking of withdrawing its restriction on female workers going to Middle Eastern countries as domestic help.

"We may go for export of female workers if the conditions of female workers sent by other countries are found satisfactory," The Daily Star yesterday quoted State Minister for Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment, Mohammad Quamrul Islam, as saying.

He told the newspaper that his ministry is collecting data and also contacting other countries in this regard before finalising its decision.

According to sources, the Director General of the Bureau of Manpower Export and Training (BMET), Shahudul Haque, will attend a conference on Foreign Domestic Migrant Workers in Colombo at the end of this month.

The conference, being organised by the Malaysia-based non-government organisation, CARAM (IOM), is likely to address the problems and prospects of domestic help working in the Middle East.

Haque will share his experience of the conference and apprise the ministry of the state of domestic help working in the oil rich countries, the sources said.

Currently, the government does not allow overseas employment of female workers as domestic help. Only expatriate Bangladeshis or government officials are allowed to take female workers as domestic help.

But unofficially, many female workers from Bangladesh travel to the Middle East and work as domestic help.

According to recruiting agencies, there is a huge demand for female workers as domestic help in the Middle East.

The government's restrictions bar them from going to these countries where thousands of female workers from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines are working.

The recruited female workers are trained in different centres before they are sent to their employers.

Officials observed that Bangladesh could set up training centres for the female workers, and improve the country's human resource export potential.