Esteemed Secretary of Labour Ministry of Jordan

Esteemed Secretary of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment of Bangladesh,

Distinguished panelists.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Good afternoon from Dhaka and as salamu alaikum

Let me begin by paying my homage to the greatest Bangali of all times – our Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. We are celebrating his birth centenary.  I thank the Embassy of Bangladesh in Jordan for organizing the ‘Mujib Barsha Webinar Series’ to commemorate his birth centenary. 

Choosing migration as a topic for the Webinar series is a very timely one. Just last week UAE hosted the 13th GFMD talking about the future of human mobility and innovative partnership for sustainable development. Partnership and sustainable development is very much a core of human mobility. No country can deal with migration alone. Shared responsibility, cooperation and inclusiveness are critical in addressing challenges to effective migration governance. 

We tend to forget that human mobility is an ancient global phenomena. Human race has always been on the move. Human mobility happens all around the world. Our religion records events of migration since long before Hijrat. The holy Qur’an speaks of the migration experiences of many prophets even prior to Islam, such as Abraham ইব্রাহীম, Lot লুত, Jacob ইয়াকুব, and Moses মূসা. 

But although migration is a global phenomenon, there is still no global understanding of how to manage it – despite UN adopting the Global Compact for Migration. Cooperation and partnership is the key to managing migration. There has to be a strong partnership and cooperation between countries of origin and countries of destination with active participation of UN agencies to materialize safe, regular and orderly migration as stipulated in the Global Compact for Migration. The Compact has indeed brought in an opportunity for all the stakeholders for streamlining the management of migration for the benefit of all. Bangladesh being the proponent of the concept is keen in fostering partnership for realizing safe, regular and orderly migration for the benefits and wellbeing of people on the move – be it as labour migration, or mobility for other reasons. We believe, mobility brings economic development – for people on the move, for countries of origin, for countries of destination and for business and global economy. There is a misperception that expatriates or migrants bring only problems. 

But in contrast, they bring mobility and profit for business, industries, agriculture, health sector – even in education sector of countries of destination. They even bring Nobel prize! Expats and immigrants winning Nobel Prizes in the sciences for institutions in their host countries is not an uncommon scenario. As per WEF records, immigrants and ex-pats have a history of winning physics, chemistry, medicine and economics Nobel prizes. If there are no foreign workers, many sectors like travel, airports, construction, industries, factories, agriculture in many countries of destination may face closure.  

Human mobility can create opportunities for those who move and those who stay. It also helps connect people across borders and continents benefitting also host communities. Yet human mobility has wrongly become a charged and contentious topic with narratives of fear, control and lost sovereignty globally.   

The history of migration in Bangladesh started long back during the British colonial period. Currently, Bangladesh is sixth largest country of origin globally, while India stands as the largest country of origin having the highest number of migrants abroad.

 After the Second World War, the United Kingdom faced labor shortages and therefore began to attract labor migrants of the Commonwealth states. Young men from Bangladesh, in particular from the Sylhet region, thus left for the UK, mostly settled in London, and contributed to meeting the increasing demand for cheap labor. This initiated chain migration of further workers and family members to the UK in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and led to close transnational connections between Bangladesh and the UK. 

Currently, there are about 10 Million Bangladeshis living outside the borders of Bangladesh. Hence, our government gives highest priorities to the welfare and improvement of the status of Bangladeshi migrants both in Bangladesh and in the countries of destinations. As a strong proponent of global migration governance, Bangladesh places high importance for putting in place a comprehensive framework for the safe, orderly and regular human mobility through the implementation of the Global Compact for Migration (GCM). We have adopted a ‘whole of the society’ approach so that we may protect the migrants starting from recruitment to the eventual return to Bangladesh through public-private partnerships. Our awareness raising programmes are aimed to achieve that end. UN agencies and civil society partnership plays a strong role in it. 

Considering the necessities and the benefits migrants bring, we should take all measures keeping the ultimate interest of the migrants in the centre of all of our activities. 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

Of late we have witnessed increase in forced migration and displacements taking place for reasons like climate change, sudden natural disasters and forced displacement. We have the first hand experience of all these types.  A good number of our population is regularly displaced due to erratic climate changes every year. We need effective and proactive support from the international community to manage this huge displacement.

As you all know, currently Bangladesh is hosting more than a million forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals, commonly known as Rohingyas who fled en masse, the atrocity and persecution at the hands of their own people in Myanmar. We need proactive and meaningful role of the international community for a sustainable solution of the prolonged crisis through repatriation.

Excellencies,

The pandemic Covid19 has made the migrant workers more vulnerable. In order to address the gaps to protect migrants during normal as well as crisis times, we should promote more rights-based approach for the migrants.  

Unfortunately, for host of reasons, the prospective migrants choose the irregular paths or they are allured to be trafficked or after regular arrival, due to change of circumstances, they become irregular. To offset these adverse causes and impacts and to cope with the suddenly changing employment landscapes, both the countries of origin and the designation need to review their migration policies and requirements to better equip the migrants for any future crisis. Effective cooperation between countries is the key in this regard.

Ladies and gentlemen, 

The new scenario created by the pandemic has already made labour migration more intricate. Moreover, with the advent of 4IR the situation has become more delicate. More research is therefore needed to examine this phenomenon. 

As migration many a times, is a demand-driven process - the increased access to regular channels has an inverse relationship with the prevalence of or recourse to irregular migration. I hope that we would be able to significantly contribute towards reducing all channels of irregular migration and create more consensuses to protect the migrants and their interests by creating more access to regular migration.

I thank you all and wish you a safe life free from COVID 19.

Joi Bangabandhu

Joi Bangla