It is estimated that nearly 8.0 million Bangladeshis are working in the Middle East alone...Bangladeshi migrants working in the multibillion dollar construction industry in Arabian Gulf countries are shouldering the costs of their own recruitment fees...A study conducted by the New York University's Stern Centre for Business and Human Rights found that workers spend an average of 10 to 18 months' worth of salary paying off the fees that help facilitate their migration...In order to reduce the cost of labour on mega projects, a weakly controlled system for recruitment is passing on the costs to the workers themselves. Workers from Bangladesh are paying the highest fees in the world...The study...calls on Arab governments to enforce laws against the selling of visas and on migrant-sending countries to legalise and regulate their local networks of unregistered recruitment agents. The study found that governments in the Gulf countries provide migrant worker visas to multinational and local construction companies for free or at a nominal cost, but Gulf-based agents turn around and sell them at a mark-up to recruiters in Bangladesh along with other South Asian countries who then pass on the cost to the lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers. The workers have no choice other than to accept low-wage jobs with few protections for a chance to send money to relatives back home.