Bangladesh feels economic backlash from Middle East crisis

Expatriate workers forced to leave Libya are returning with debts and causing massive reduction in country's income
Faruk Sikder
Faruk Sikder sells fruit from a cart in Dhaka, Bangladesh, after being forced to flee Libya. Photograph: Syed Zain al-Mahmood for the Guardian

Tens of thousands of Bangladeshi migrant workers are returning home from strife-torn Middle Eastern countries, threatening social and economic turmoil in their homeland which relies heavily on expatriates for a large part of its national income.

More than 36,000 people have returned from Libya alone in recent weeks. An estimated 70,000-80,000 Bangladeshis were working there before the current crisis.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), more than 36,500 Bangladeshis have been repatriated from Libya since the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi began.

A study by the refugee and migratory movements research unit of Dhaka University says 85% of returnees have outstanding debts and many are owed backpay by their Libyan employers who fled the conflict, leaving the workers to fend for themselves.

Remittances sent home by migrant workers account for 12% of Bangladesh's GDP and the mass homecoming threatens a sharp economic jolt.

Few places epitomise the devastating effect as well as Bashail, a town of 3,500 people in Barisal district in southern Bangladesh. Twelve of its young men have returned from north Africa since March, most with harrowing tales of hunger and physical deprivation.

"This means 12 families which had staked everything they had by sending their sons abroad are now almost penniless," said Abdul Mannan, a village elder. "Most borrowed money from relatives or mortgaged property to pay the migration costs. We are not rich people."

Faruk Sikder was working as a bricklayer among the faded colonial buildings of Tripoli a month ago.

Now the 22-year-old is eking out a precarious existence selling fruit on the streets of Dhaka after leaving Libya with nothing but the clothes on his back.

"My Chinese manager ran away without paying me six months' wages," said Sikder. "I have nothing to show for my 10 months in Libya. I only have my debts."

Sikder said he made an arduous overland journey to the Tunisian border with the help of a friendly Libyan who agreed to take him and six others for a small fee.

"The Gaddafi army set up checkposts along the way," he said. "They stripsearched us and robbed everyone. They took everything – mobile phones, rings, cash, everything.

"I cried when they took a portable levelling machine I had bought. I had hoped to earn a living with it back in Bangladesh."

After arriving home, Sikder spent only a few hours with his family in Bashail. "I owed people money from the 240,000 taka (£2,000) I borrowed to pay the agent who arranged my trip to Libya. As long as I was abroad, they knew they would get the money from remittance I sent. But as soon as they heard I had returned, they came to my house and demanded payment."

Sikder fled the next morning to Dhaka where he makes about 250 taka a day. "After paying my expenses, I have very little left," he said.

"My father mortgaged our land and crops to send me to Libya. If I can't pay back the money, we will go hungry."

Rabab Fatima, head of the IOM regional office in Dhaka, said: "Many of the Bangladeshis who returned have unpaid wages in Libya. Some still have debts at home incurred during their passage to Libya. So there is a sense of uncertainty in them about the future."

Dr Ahsan Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute, a Dhaka-based thinktank, said: "Remittance is six times the official development assistance and 11 times the foreign direct investment in Bangladesh.

"Thirty-six thousand workers is less than 10% of our annual outflow and, at first glance, would not be cause for concern on a macroeconomic level.


"But when you consider that the annual outflow of migrant workers has been decreasing for the past few years due to the global economic slowdown and a variety of other reasons, this is a bad blow.

"The young men and women who have been forced to return will find their financial and social capital severely depleted. In a country where remittance plays such a huge role, this also means less cash in the local economy."

The government has been concerned enough to take out a $40m (£25m) loan from the World Bank to help the migrants get back on their feet.

Arshadul Islam, an official in the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry, said each returnee would be given a cash grant of 50,000 taka (£414). But he said: "Ultimately, the solution is to find employment for them. They are in a bad situation."

Despite his traumatic experience in Libya, Sikder hopes to return when the war has finished. "I hope the government will think of sending us back after the fighting stops," he said. "I still have a contract there."

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