Bangladesh News

The government will ask Kuwait to ensure that employers there remit arrears to the Bangladeshi workers now being deported for allegedly inciting or taking part in strikes, an official yesterday said.

“We’ll hold meeting with Kuwaiti authorities and ask them how they’d arrange the payment of the outstanding salaries to the deported workers,” Shahriar Kader Siddiky, labour counsellor at Bangladesh Embassy in Kuwait, told The Daily Star.

He said the deportees left behind their salaries and belongings in the Gulf state.

Meantime, at least 63 workers arrived in Dhaka yesterday morning on board two Kuwait Airways and Qatar Airways flights. With them, the number of deportees from Kuwait in the last three days stands at 280.

Kuwait is sending the workers back home after thousands of Asian workers went on strike in protest at low wage, poor work conditions and exploitations by their employers.

Many of the deportees, however, said they were not involved in the demonstrations in any way, but that Kuwaiti police broke into their camps out of the blue, beat them up and hopped them on board Dhaka-bound flights.

When asked about this, Shahriar Siddiky said the embassy asked the Kuwaiti authorities to make sure that no innocent workers are deported.

“Of the around 1000 arrestees, Kuwait also freed 300 as their involvement in the demonstrations was not proved. They assured us that they would not deport any workers who were not involved in the strikes,” he said.

On exactly how many workers will be sent back, he said the Kuwaiti government has not informed them of the figure. “We asked the Kuwaiti authorities not to make any further arrests,” he said.

The Bangladesh Embassy also asked Kuwait not to take any decision affecting other Bangladeshis in the Gulf nation, the labour counsellor said.

He said the issues that ignited the protests have largely been solved in most cases but some workers of a few companies are demanding written commitment on the part of their employers.

On Kuwait’s decision not to renew residency permits for Bangladeshi workers on menial jobs, he said the embassy has not been informed of any such decision.

Meantime, various organisations on migrants’ rights yesterday condemned the continued deportation, saying the move is a complete violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.

“We call on the UN Human Rights Council to intervene to protect the rights of migrant workers in Kuwait,” said an IMA Research Foundation statement.

The unjust detention and deportation of migrant workers only add to the continued abuses they have been through, it said.

Probashi Manab Kalyan Foundation (PMKF) demanded compensation to the deported workers and called for diplomatic efforts to stop further expulsion.