About 40 percent of Bangladeshi migrants who are currently working in Bahrain are maintaining irregular status due to lack of their proper documents, said top official of Labour Market Regulatory Authority of the host country.
LMRA chief executive officer Ausamah A AL Absi made the remarks while speaking at a sideline meeting of the Asia Pacific Preparatory Meeting on GCM for Safe, Orderly and Regular migration at regional headquarter of United Nations’ ESCAP in Bangkok on Wednesday.
He described that the Bangladeshi migrants secured second position in Bahrain in term of population number after the Indian migrant workers who became the highest number in the country.
‘But about five percent of the Indian migrant workers are undocumented,’ he said, adding that irregular Nepalese migrants accounted for only 1.2 per cent of their population in Bahrain.
Ausamah A AL Absi also said that the middlemen comprising the Bangladeshis in Bahrain have been dominating in the recruitment of workers and even showing their dominance in and around in Bangladesh mission in Manama.
The LMRA), a government body with a corporate identity in Bahrain endowed with full financial and administrative independence under the authority of a board of directors duly chaired by the Minister of Labour.
Ausamah A AL Absi informed that the Bahrain londontoto authorities have initiated a Flexi Permit System to regularize the undocumented migrant workers in the country since July and about 15,000 of undocumented foreign migrants received the blue cards under system by changing their status there.
According to the embassy in Manama, there are 180,000 Bangladeshis working in Bahrain The officials confirmed that there is a huge number of workers who are homeless and sleep on the roads and public utilities.
Representatives of the migrant rights bodies from different labour sending countries and International Organization for Migration were present at the meeting.
Bangladeshi migrant rights organizer and WARBE Development Foundation chairman Syed Saiful Haque, who made observation by saying that Bangladeshi workers were paying high cost of migration due to trading of visas taking place in both Bangladesh and destinations in the Gulf countries.
‘As the middlemen are involved in the visa trading and process of recruitment, how it can be tackled to ensure rights of migrants,’ he questioned.
Bangladeshi Ovhibashi Mohila Sramik Association (BOMSA) director Sumaiya Islam who also spoke at the sidelines meeting urged the Bahrain authorities to regularize the undocumented Bangladeshi workers first and then send the demand of fresh recruitment.
IOM migration specialist Lara White and coordinator of the Migration Forum of Asia William Gois and , among others also spoke at the meeting.
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