Sumi returning from Saudi
Bangladesh is flying back Sumi Akter, a housemaid whose video appealing for help after alleged torture in Saudi Arabia went viral on social media, as opposition MPs have demanded that the government stop sending female workers to the Gulf kingdom.
Sumi made international headlines earlier this month when she alleged in a video on social media that she was being tortured after being “lured into Saudi Arabia with a promise of a good job”.
Police later took her to the Consulate General of Bangladesh in Jeddah from her employer’s home, but the employer denied her “final exit” before getting 22,000 riyal he paid for her.
He agreed to give her the permission to leave finally after a labour court rejected his plea for payment of the “dues” and she is travelling back to Bangladesh, the Bangladesh consulate said in a statement.
The flight carrying Sumi is scheduled to reach Dhaka on Friday morning, KM Salahuddin, the first secretary at the consulate, told bdnews24.com.
At least 960 other female workers have returned to Bangladesh from Saudi Arabia following allegations of torture and sexual abuse in the first 10 months of this year.
As many as 48 of them died in Saudi Arabia.
'STOP SENDING OUR WOMEN TO SAUDI'
Facing protests by women’s rights organisations and questions from opposition lawmakers, Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmed said the government was “more worried than the opposition MPs” about sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia.
When some MPs demanded an end to the menace by stopping recruitment of housemaids in Saudi Arabia, Imran described government efforts to prevent harassment of the Bangladeshi female workers in the Middle-Eastern country.
On being asked by Jatiya Party MP Mujibul Haque Chunnu, a former state minister for expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment, Imran said the chargé d'affaires of the Saudi embassy in Dhaka was called some days ago and asked to raise the issue with his foreign ministry.
The government would raise the issue again in a joint technical group meeting in Saudi Arabia on Nov 26-27, Imran said.
The Jatiya Party’s Kazi Firoz Rashid was furious at the deaths of the Bangladeshi women in Saudi Arabia.
“It has been said that the recruiting agencies are sending workers abroad. Then what’s the expatriates’ welfare ministry doing?” he asked.
“We are sending our mothers and sisters and they are returning as corpses after different sorts of torture, including sexual abuse. Their post-mortem examination reports describe these as “natural deaths”. All the reports are same. They (Saudi authorities) do it and the Bangladesh embassy doesn’t even look into it. The ministry takes no steps,” Rashid said.
“The agents are sending the workers and so he (minister) is not taking any responsibilities…
“I demand a straight answer – will it stop or not? We don’t want money from sending our mothers and sisters abroad,” Rashid said.
In response, Imran said the government had suspended licences of 160 travel agencies and cancelled three in past few months.
The government was also formulating a law requiring the counterparts of the Bangladeshi recruiting agencies in Saudi Arabia to provide their details so that Bangladesh can ask the kingdom to take measures.
Sultan Muhammed Mansur Ahmed and Waseqa Ayesha Khan also spoke on the issue.
The minister then said: “We will try to ensure that our women work with honour. But if it becomes impossible, we will consider stopping sending them.”
Bangladesh has sent 330,590 female workers to Saudi Arabia since June, 2014, according to him.
They are among 868,363 sent to as many as 74 countries, mostly to Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and Mauritius.
