The Migrant Rights Protection Committee (MRPC) is a grassroots initiative that RMMRU implemented to provide a strong voice to migrant workers in Bangladesh who have faced rights deprivation or recruitment fraud. MRPC provides an open space for migrant workers to learn about safer migration, share experiences with fellow migrant workers, and report abuses that they have faced in their migratory experiences. Internal and international mobility of labour plays an extremely important role in the economic development and alleviation of rural poverty in Bangladesh. The remittances that migrant workers send back to their families provide opportunity and livelihoods for Bangladeshi civilians living in rural areas. However, the unregulated and global nature of migration includes many activities that may cause the migrant worker to be susceptible to exploitative situations. MRPCs help migrant workers with such issues and to demand justice and compensation for harms that have been caused, through community arbitration and local collaborations with partners such as RPDO.
A local arbitration was conducted by RMMRU MRPC on March 7, 2013 in Tangail, Bangladesh with local partner RPDO that helped Md. Saidur Ali regain TK110,000 ($1,411 US) from a recruitment fraud. His father, Md. Abdus Salam Miah is a farmer in Dorikhoshillah village, in the Tangail district. However, due to extreme poverty, Saidur stopped going to school and considered looking into overseas employment to help his father support their family. He sought out Uzzal Mia, a recruitment agency middleman, from Rampur Village, who asked for TK 250,000 to arrange Saidur with a job in Dubai. Saidur had to mortgage his family’s land, as well as borrow money from friends and relatives to fulfill this hefty price, but Saidur and his father were confident the future opportunities to bring their family out of poverty would be worth the debt.
However, after Saidur received his Visa and landed in Dubai, he was shocked to discover that the job Uzzal had promised did not exist, and Uzzal had cut all communication with Saidur. Saidur, stranded in a city that he did not know and without a job or family, felt lost and miserable. After several efforts to find a job in Dubai, he resigned to returning to Bangladesh, more in debt than he was before. When he finally got in contact with Uzzal, he was blamed for leaving Dubai and was threatened by Uzzal when he tried to ask for his money back. Saidur approached MRPC members at his village who organized a local arbitration and listened to his story. The MRPC was able to facilitate justice to the situation and prevent Uzzal from committing future fraudulent offences again.
Stories like Md. Saidur Ali’s are common. Without institutionalized safeguards against the dangers of labour migration, offences like the one committed by Uzzal Mia will continue to affect the already poor families in Bangladesh. Without a local focus on pro-poor growth and poverty alleviation, these kinds of injustices will continue to happen. MRPC seeks to illuminate the exploitations involved in migratory movements and inform policy recommendations to eradicate these practices.
From the team at RMMRU, we would like to extend warm-hearted congratulations to our grassroots partner RPDO with MRPC on another successful arbitration and fair recovery of TK110, 000 ($1,411 US) for Md. Saidur Ali.