An increasing number of Bangladeshi women are going abroad to find employment as domestic helpers despite a growing number of reports of adverse working conditions and abuse overseas. According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training (BMET), in 2017 a total of 1,008,525 people went abroad for work. Of them, 121,925 were women workers, accounting for 12.1% of the total migrant workforce from Bangladesh.
Although Bangladesh benefits from the remittances the women send home, most of their host countries provide poor living conditions and are failing to stop the torture and abuse of domestic workers, particularly in the Middle East.
The project implemented in 2019-2020 engages government, CSOs, private sector & female migrant workers in influencing policy, raising awareness and mitigation benefitting female migrant workers. Through engaging community members, female migrant workers , local level government officials, elected representatives, media professionals in the target district, Bogura, the project has successfully reached out to its intended beneficiaries and target participants. Female migrant workers have particicipated in capacity building sessions which helped them learn much needed soft skills to identify rights violations and the sign/risk factors of unsafe migration and human trafficking.
The potential migrant workers in the target district were provided with information on safe migration services ( eg. pre departure training, SMART card ) provided by District Employment and Manpower Office (DEMO)/ Technical Training Centre (TTC) in Bogra. They learned about how to verify their oversease employement contracts and employers details, technical and language skills required for the employment.