Each year, more than 400,000 workers depart from Bangladesh to seek employment abroad and better their lives. Many of the migrants migrate without a job contract in hand, without knowing their salary, hours of work they are supposed to work for, job description and employment conditions. This makes them highly vulnerable to exploitative work conditions in the destination countries and, thereby, to forced labour. Estimates from the International Labour Organization (ILO) suggest that 24.9 million men, women and children are living under forced labour in the Asia Pacific region alone. This calls for an urgent need to address the determinants of forced labour, factors influencing the vulnerability of migrants to forced labour and how the vulnerabilities can be reduced. This study, undertaken by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), together with the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS), aims to analyse the factors affecting the vulnerability of Bangladeshi overseas migrants/potential migrants and document the experiences of modern slavery from returnees. The study also aims to evaluate the suggestions from the migrants to identify the possible intervention areas for GFEM.
Authors: Ahmed, Md. Shakil; C Das, Narayan; Huq, Lopita; Prabhakar, Pallavi; Sulaiman, Munshi
Type: Report
Year: 2019
