July 15, 2008	Tuesday	Rajab 11, 1429

DHAKA, July 14: Saudi Arabia asked Bangladesh on Monday to act against illegal manpower traders in order to stop the abuse of migrant workers in the Arab kingdom.

“Some Bangladeshi recruiting agencies are sending labourers to Saudi Arabia without maintaining the proper rules and violating the guidelines,” Abdullah Bin Naser Al-Busairi, Saudi ambassador to Bangladesh, told a news conference.

He said the illegal recruiters also failed to train or brief the Bangladeshi workers for work in Saudi Arabia.

“The illegal manpower traders cheat the job seekers in many ways, such as by violating contracts and promising wages higher than what the employer will actually pay,” he said.

Al-Busairi said the illegal agencies were also taking more money than usual from Bangladeshis seeking jobs in Saudi Arabia. Workers from impoverished Bangladesh usually pay large sums of money to recruiters in their search for work overseas.

Bangladeshi workers recently reported facing problems of abuse, including harassment and poor wages, in Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Saudi Arabia needed to make more effort to reform laws to improve the conditions of poor workers from Asian and African countries in the kingdom.

Around a third of Saudi Arabia’s population of 25 million people are expatriates, mainly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Over one million work as maids.

Some 1.7 million Bangladeshis now work in Saudi Arabia in various sectors, including construction and cleaning, officials said.

The Saudi embassy in Dhaka issues nearly 1,000 visas for Bangladeshis daily and the kingdom will continue recruiting from the South Asian Muslim state, Al-Busairi said.—Reuters