The drama took an interesting turn. As the original play was scripted in the backdrop of
the return of the pardoned workers from arid west Asia, someone forgot (or cared little)
to contextualise it with the new set of returnees from a lush green land. One of the
charges labelled against the returnee survivors of trafficking is that they had served
sentences in Vietnam for violating laws there. The sub-inspector of the Turag police
station not only asserted that "all of them were in prison", she said Bangladesh police
"was instructed from Vietnam" to take action against them. This is a patently fallacious
claim. Not only none among the group served time in Vietnam, no one even faced any
charge from the authorities. On the contrary many among the lot claimed they
unsuccessfully attempted to secure the protection of the Vietnamese police.
Over almost a year, investigative reports of a few national dailies have churned out gory
details of the experiences of the victims of labour trafficking to Vietnam and Cambodia.
Those reports also provided valuable information about the modus operandi of the errant
registered recruiting agencies, informal dalals and travel agencies. The reports confirm
that these victims were promised jobs of USD 500-600 for eight hourly work (with
promises of USD 1.5 per hour for over time on regular days and USD 2.5 for holidays), free
food, accommodation, health insurance, renewal of work permit after two years and air
tickets for returning home. On average, they paid USD 4700 to 5900 to the intermediaries
as facilitation charges.
In most instances, the aspirant migrants were asked to come to Dhaka a day before the
flight and then were forced to sign blank papers. These signed papers were subsequently
used to print their "contracts". The unsuspecting migrants were used as mules for money
laundering. Each was given a packet of USD 1000-5000 cash with instructions to hand
those over to their representatives soon after their arrival at destination. Refusal to sign
blank documents or carry the cash was countered with threats that their flights would
stand cancelled and money forfeited.
On arrival at the country of destination, contrary to their expectation, instead of
representatives of the sponsoring companies they were received by Bangladeshi dalals.
Their passports were immediately seized. They were accommodated in small rooms with
poor toilet and sanitation facilities. Those lucky to be served with food had to put up with
eating pork and frogs among other items. Contrary to their contract, others had to
arrange their own food.
None were provided with work permits. Without placing them against the work
promised, they were taken to various companies from time to time and paid irregularly.
"Work with poor pay and no work, no pay" was the golden rule. For a few who could
barely manage to save, inability to avail the services of remittance transfer houses (due toTOP