"Malaysian labour market closed again to BD workers", 20 May 2024

That Malaysia once again is set to close its labour market to Bangladeshi migrant workers starting June 01 next highlights the danger of Bangladesh's flawed manpower export system in which fraudulent recruiting agencies enjoy free rein to exploit outbound workers.

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Of late, Oman and the UAE have also imposed similar restrictions due to the exploitation of migrant workers and malpractices in the manpower sector.

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Closure of several vital manpower export markets will have a serious impact on the foreign exchange earnings of the country on the one hand and the livelihood of the families of the job seekers on the other. Remittance inflow has been erratic for the past few months; it will be further affected by this unwanted turn of events. For the last couple of months, it has been frequently reported that about 0.1 to 0.2 million Bangladeshis who migrated to Malaysia, spending their last farthings, were thrown into tremendous hardships as they didn't find the jobs they were promised.

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Even a panel of UN experts voiced their concern over the miserable condition of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia, putting the country under significant international pressure to uphold workers' rights. Since then stakeholders concerned started fearing that Kuala Lumpur would soon impose restrictions on the entry of Bangladeshi workers. The government agencies concerned were aware of the developments but unfortunately did not do anything tangible to avert the closure of this vital market.