Bangladesh News

Kuwait will repatriate over 500 Bangladeshi workers including 300 female cleaners after a Kuwaiti labour court ruled in favour of the workers deprived of promised wages and other benefits.

The Bangladeshi workers, placed at various government establishments by a local cleaning company, filed a complaint with the Labour Court under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour saying that the company was irregular with payments and also failed to renew their residencies.

The court ordered the company to pay the workers two months’ salary, other benefits and ticket fares for returning home, reported Kuwaiti newspaper Arab Times yesterday quoting an official of the Bangladesh Embassy in Kuwait.

He said out of the company’s 750 Bangladeshi cleaners, 233 have already been repatriated while the rest will be sent back in a few days.

“The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour is doing everything in its capacity to repatriate the workers,” the official said.

The embassy received complaints from some cleaners that they were paid as low as KD 6 in compensation, despite the embassy’s request to the company to pay the workers not less than KD 20 as temporary compensation.

“We then asked the workers to give the embassy their power of attorney so that we can pursue their cases with regards to their salaries and the end of service benefits,” said the official.

“The company had offered to transfer the residencies of some workers to another employer but they refused. The workers are disillusioned and just want to go back home,” he said.

Out of the 750 workers, about 300 are female cleaners and the residencies of most workers have expired, the official added.

Earlier, the workers had told the Arab Times that the company had filed false cases against some of them on charges of bunking off work in a bid to deport them without paying arrears.

The workers also said they had been facing serious food shortage.