Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment State Minister Nurul Haque on Thursday called for stricter accountability measures for recruiting agencies involved in overseas employment, warning that unethical practices in the migration sector must be dealt with through firm policy actions.
He said agencies engaged in irregularities and unethical recruitment activities should face tougher action, while the membership structure of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) should move beyond numerical expansion and focus instead on quality-based grading and accountability.
The remarks came at a workshop titled “From Return to Rise: Stories of Resilience and Reintegration,” organised by BRAC under its migration programme in Dhaka.
Nur also expressed concern over risky and irregular migration attempts, particularly through sea routes to Europe and other destinations.
“We must stop this dangerous trend of sea-route migration,” he said, adding that those pushing young people toward life-threatening journeys in the name of migration would face government action.
He added that the government was also working through its reintegration initiatives to support returnee migrants, noting that remittances earned through migrant workers’ hard labour continued to strengthen the country’s economy.
The workshop highlighted the achievements and experiences of the “Improved Sustainable Reintegration of Bangladeshi Returnee Migrants (Prottasha-2)” project, implemented by BRAC with funding support from the European Union.
BRAC Chairperson Hossain Zillur Rahman said safe migration and reintegration of returnees required coordinated efforts from both government and non-government organisations because migration challenges were multidimensional.
National Skills Development Authority Executive Chairman Nazneen Kawsar Chowdhury said Bangladesh must send skilled workers abroad based on international labour market demand analysis to ensure safer and more sustainable migration.
Senior officials from the expatriates’ welfare ministry, the foreign ministry, the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board, and representatives from local and international organisations also attended the event.
