Migrant workers seeking employment abroad are allegedly being subjected to harassment while obtaining the necessary clearance from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), said National Citizen Party (NCP) leader and lawmaker Hasnat Abdullah.

In a verified Facebook post on Thursday (September 17), he alleged that the allocation of BMET cards had been suspended for the past week. As a result, many workers were unable to obtain clearance, prompting announcements of protest programmes.

Hasnat claimed that although card issuance had been halted publicly, BMET cards were allegedly being issued secretly through a “back channel” in exchange for additional payments. He also alleged that competition over taking bribes had continued even after the new government assumed office.

More than 10 million Bangladeshis working abroad send around $30 billion to the country every year, making remittances one of the country’s major sources of foreign currency. Workers travelling abroad on employment visas are required to obtain immigration clearance from BMET before departure.

Hasnat Abdullah said an integrated, registration-based database should be established for migrant workers as a first step. He proposed integrating information from national identity cards and passports into a single database.

He also called for BMET to be transformed from a “gatekeeper” into a digital registration authority. In his view, the existing system dependent on physical plastic cards should be replaced with a database-based registration system.

According to the World Bank, the cost of sending workers abroad from Bangladesh is relatively high compared with other South Asian countries. Citing a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics survey, Hasnat said the average migration cost for a Bangladeshi worker travelling to major destinations such as Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait is around Tk 417,000. On average, it takes 17.6 months to recover this amount.

He alleged that when bribes, middlemen and additional airport-related expenses are taken into account, the actual cost exceeds Tk 500,000.

Hasnat called for reforms to the flawed software-based registration system and demanded that the entire process be made digital and free from harassment.