Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will spend a busy time during her upcoming visit to Johannesburg, South Africa with a number of meetings planned on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.
Welfare of Bangladeshi migrants in African countries is likely to dominate discussions during this visit.
Bangladesh has been a country of net-emigration; the number of its nationals going abroad overwhelmingly outweighs the number of foreign citizens it receives. Beginning in 1976, an increasing number of men and women have been migrating each year to foreign countries for work. According to an official estimate, the current number of Bangladeshi migrants gone abroad is more or less 15 million. When migration for contractual and short-term overseas work began in 1976 with outflow to middle-eastern countries, accentuated by post-oil-crisis boom of infrastructural industry over there, approximately 6100 people migrated from Bangladesh. In 2022, a total of11,35,000 Bangladeshi citizens migrated abroad for work overseas.
Bangladeshi migrants are working in about 176 countries as skilled, semi-skilled or less-skilled workers. About 80pc of Bangladeshi migrant workers' destinations are Gulf or Middle-eastern counties, while around 15pc migrants emigrate to South East and East Asian countries and a 5pc of them go to other destinations including African countries. In Bangladesh, safe, orderly and regular migration for overseas work is widely held as the other name of development. Remittances sent by the migrant workers are one of the most vital sources of foreign currencies for the country. A one third of the 2.2 Million people who enter the job market each year go abroad for work, and around 30 per cent of the total employment comes from overseas jobs. In 2022-23 fiscal year, Bangladesh received around $21.61 billion in remittances sent by its migrant workers. Migration has in many ways benefited the country of destination, country of origin, migrant's family and society in terms of development and creating access to education, health, and the security of property and livelihood. Successful migrant workers have influenced and assisted others in their local surroundings to migrate for overseas employment, and thus helped them change their economic and social status.
Major destination of our Migrant workers is Middle East especially Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. A large number of workers is also being employed in Singapore, Malaysia, and Lebanon as well as African countries like Mauritius, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Seychelles, Congo, Ethiopia, Algeria and South Africa.
Migration flow is increased gradually though it was significantly affected by Covid-19. But from 2022 it shows an upward trend sharply including African countries except Libya and Egypt. Though Libya is considered as one of the promising destination for Bangladeshi, but due to Political unrest the flow was interrupted. Now measures are taken to start migration in Libya again. The number of migrants is increasing in Mauritius, Sudan, Algeria, Seychelles, Congo, Somalia etc.
