Md. Riaz Uddin Khan and Zulker Naeen
The dream of working abroad has become a nightmare for thousands of Bangladeshi migrants. They arrive at foreign airports with valid visas, only to be interrogated, detained, and sent back home on the next available flight. This growing crisis of airport turnbacks and exploitation under tourist visas is not just damaging individual lives but also destroying Bangladesh’s global reputation. The problem has spread across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and beyond, with immigration authorities becoming increasingly suspicious of Bangladeshi travelers.
The scale of the problem is staggering. In July 2025 alone, Malaysia deported hundreds of Bangladeshis: 96 on July 11, 123 on July 13, and 80 on July 26. This followed 98 deportations in a single day in August. On August 13, Malaysian authorities denied entry to 204 Bangladeshis at Kuala Lumpur International Airport for vague travel reasons and inconsistent documents.
The situation has intensified across multiple countries. According to immigration data, between January 2024 and September 2025, at least 187 Bangladeshis were deported from the United States. In late September 2025, another 52 Bangladeshis were deported from Italy, Austria, Greece, and Cyprus. The UK deported 15 Bangladeshis on August 30 for immigration violations. Even countries that previously welcomed Bangladeshi workers are now turning them away.
As a consequence, now Bangladeshi travelers with apparently valid documents are being stopped, questioned intensively, and ultimately refused entry. The exploitation of Bangladeshi workers under tourist visas stems from three interconnected root causes that have created a systematic crisis in labour migration.
First, the massive gap between legal migration costs and actual earning potential drives workers toward illegal channels. Although the government has fixed recruitment fees for major destination countries, workers continue to pay enormous amounts. According to research data, Bangladeshi migrant workers traveling to Saudi Arabia on average paid more than 450 percent of the government’s fixed recruitment price for the total labor migration process in 2018.
Second, powerful syndicates operating between Bangladesh and destination countries have created fraudulent recruitment systems. The situation in Malaysia exemplifies this problem. Malaysia selected only 101 Bangladeshi agencies to conduct recruitment in 2022 without clarifying the selection criteria. Before halting recruitment in May 2024, Malaysia had recruited nearly 500,000 Bangladeshis, with each worker reportedly spending between $4,500 and $6,000 for a job. Many employers were allegedly fraudulent but managed to secure approval to recruit foreign workers by bribing officials in both countries.
UN human rights experts expressed concern that large sums of money were being generated through the fraudulent recruitment of migrant workers by criminal networks operating between Malaysia and Bangladesh. The experts noted that many migrants found on arrival in Malaysia that they did not have employment as promised and were often forced into overstaying their visas. Consequently, these migrants risked arrest, detention, ill-treatment, and deportation.
Third, across the Middle East, Bangladeshis live under the exploitative kafala system, which attaches migrants’ work permits and visas to their local sponsor, who is usually their employer. It is virtually impossible to leave an employer, even if the employer is exploitative or abusive. Any complaint against the employer may lead to job loss, irregularity, then arrest and deportation.
The mechanism by which Bangladeshi workers unknowingly or knowingly enter different countries on tourist visas instead of work permits is both systematic and deceptive. Many unauthorised travel agencies exploit this misunderstanding by fraudulently issuing tourist visas to workers who actually require work permits, effectively disguising human trafficking operations as legitimate tourism.
The fundamental issue lies in this systematic misrepresentation of travel purposes, where workers are deliberately given tourist visas instead of the appropriate work permits, they need for legal employment overseas.
Traffickers often send Bangladeshis overseas on tourist visas, and since foreign immigration police are aware of the tactic, they now impose extra scrutiny on Bangladeshi travelers. The main offenders are dishonest agencies that mislead people and send them abroad under false pretenses.
Workers are often coached on how to evade immigration checks. Agents reportedly send workers abroad using tourist visas and provide instructions on what to say during immigration interrogation. They are told to present fake hotel bookings and claim they are tourists when their actual purpose is finding employment. This deception works temporarily but creates long-term problems when workers are caught.
The informal network of middlemen and brokers (dalals) forms the backbone of both legal and illegal migration from Bangladesh. These intermediaries operate in a gray zone where legal migration processes involve irregular and informal practices, making it nearly impossible to distinguish legitimate services from exploitation.
These informal brokers are embedded in local communities and serve the function of linking migrants with recruitment agents. They offer what appears to be a complete service package that includes handling visas, tickets, clearances, and insurance.
The Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment has authority to register recruiting dalals and requires brokers to register sub-agents and representatives, but the government did not report how it monitored for compliance.
The Ministry suspended 126 recruitment agencies for operating in violation of the law, including breach of employment contracts and recruitment regulations, and blocked another 239 agencies. However, most of the suspended agencies subsequently resumed operations.
Rejection rates have increased significantly. The 2025 Henley Global Mobility Report revealed that Bangladesh has a 43.3 percent Schengen visa rejection rate, making it one of the highest in the world. This means nearly half of all Bangladeshi applicants for European visas are denied, regardless of their genuine intentions or qualifications.
The crisis affects genuine travelers and students most severely. Business travelers find it increasingly difficult to secure visas for key destinations. Students face extraordinary challenges. Many Bangladeshi students traveling to European countries for higher education must transit through India because these countries have no embassies in Bangladesh.
Stopping the exploitation under tourist visas and restoring the credibility of Bangladeshi passports requires coordinated action. The solutions must address both immediate symptoms and underlying structural problems.
The Bangladesh government must fundamentally reform the recruitment agency system. Licensed recruitment agencies should be required to maintain transparent fee structures with all costs clearly itemised and publicly available. The registration of dalals and sub-agents must move from voluntary to mandatory with strict enforcement.
Both the authors are Adjunct Faculty, Department of Media Studies and Journalism (MSJ)
University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)
