Bangladeshis drifting at sea are now bracketed with the stateless Rohingyas drowning in the sea raising questions that while Rohingyas have a desperate cause to escape but what led the poor Bangladeshis to be lured to jump into the sea.
Next to gold haul through Bangladesh’s airports, human trafficking using the sea beaches has defeated limits of all imaginations. It is difficult to grasp the scale of the tragedy in the sea as they people are drifting in big engine boats and other vessels in the Andaman Sea and Malaccan Strait.
Abandoned by the human traffickers, thousands of the migrants are attempting to land on the shore of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand creating the biggest internal crisis for them how to deal with the human stream which was not anticipated and became visible only two weeks back.
After initial refusal to shelter more migrants, Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to temporarily shelter the migrants on Wednesday last for one year. Thailand offers assistance. Philippines also announced it would allow migrants on the shore. But question remains why Bangladesh government is not engaging in the rescue efforts and in plans how to bring them back.
The horror story
As it appears the traffickers initially opened the human trade, dubbed as the modern day slavery from Cox’s Bazar and Tekhnaf beaches and Myanmar coast to Thai jungles. They were camped in the forest and pushed to Malaysia across the border where traffickers promised them lucrative jobs making it a bizarre billion dollar trade in human trafficking.
Meanwhile, the discovery of many mass graves in the Thai jungles in early May along with decomposed bodies and bones of victims shook the world about the cruelty meted out to the victims by the traffickers. Global media headlines also disclosed how the traffickers were extracting ransom from the migrants.
They were initially lured to reach Malaysia costing around $2,000 and were asked to make a token payment and said that the rest can be paid from their salary. But once they are in their grip, they would demand the entire money upfront and would end up in the jungle camps if they fail.
Meanwhile, hundreds perished while the number of hungry people without even drinking water would run into thousands. News report on May 14 said 104 people were killed in an acrimonious fight among inmates of a drifting vessel, carrying over 700 migrants in the Andaman Sea. The fight broke out in their desperate attempt to take hold of the depleting stock of food and water in the vessel.
Reports said between 7,000 and 9,000 migrants were in the sea last week as new vessels were spotted almost every day. Indonesia and Malaysia sheltered many but they said they were unable to shelter unknown number of people waiting in the sea. Another report said over 3,000 migrants were rescued by regional countries, but some of them also refused to allow the vessels enter into their shores.
Worst humanitarian crisis
UN report said over 25,000 people had left Bangladesh coast from January this year and the total may run closer to one lakh annually in recent past.
Indonesian navy pushed back several vessels and Malaysia closed its shore to migrant vessels last week. Thailand has similarly refused to shelter the migrants making it the worst humanitarian crisis for the region after the Vietnam War.
Question arises why the government kept quiet all through this crisis and failed to see the developing crisis taking pre-emptive steps to foil such criminal attempts. This is a complex problem and its roots lie partially in the government’s failure to reopen the manpower markets for Bangladeshi nationals in Saudi Arabia and UAE which were closed for Bangladeshi workers since 2009 and 2013 respectively. Malaysia also closed recruiting Bangladeshi nationals in 2010 and Dhaka’s subsequent failure to handle the government to government agreement to replace sending workers through private sector agents made the poor desperate job seekers take to this risky and uncertain route. Manpower exports have also nose-dived in Kuwait, Qatar and some other countries.
According to statistics available shows Nepal sent over one lakh workers to Malaysia last year while the number of formal manpower export from Bangladesh had stood at 3,874. Figures also show that Bangladesh sent 7.3 lakh workers in 2007 and 6.83 lakh for 2009. However, availability of jobs for Bangladeshi workers declined to over 38,000 in 2014 showing almost a 95 percent drop.
It raises question as to what our ministry of expatriate welfare and overseas employment is doing. Even in these days of crisis the concerned ministry is maintaining total silence. However, the ministry is blaming the foreign ministry for failure to reopen the Middle East job market. Both manpower and foreign ministries are now blaming the home ministry for its failing to stop the migration by sea saying Police, BGB and Coast Guards were mandated to deal with such crimes.
No visible govt. action
But the fact is that the government is still not in a position to mobilize its machinery to stop human trafficking. This is because there is a nexus between the local law enforcing agencies and the traffickers’ syndicates and the trade is enjoying protection from powerful political quarters. There was no such move in the past to stop the syndicates to exploit the people and even now there is no move to arrest them.
The complex issue of human trafficking and the nexus between powerful quarters and the lawmen was discussed at a seminar recently in the city hosted by National Human Rights Commission. Coast Guard and BGB officers made statements indicating decisive government actions were missing in this respect.
Question also arises as to how young women and children are in the migrants’ stream. Meanwhile reports from districts said many young are missing from villages who were earlier collected by agents to send to Malaysia.
Reports said traffickers sell the migrants to Thai fishing companies and other employers. The fishing companies use them as slave workers without pay and basic human dignity. Women are put to work as housemaid and at brothels while young children are feared to be victims of organ transplantation in hospitals.
The tragedy has shown how unguarded our people are at home when local pirates lifted them on false promises and dump them at sea. Many tend to ask question now whether the government only exists for the rich and the powerful while the poor are at the mercy of pirates ruling the sea.
Reports said that the home ministry has a list of 266 local agents and their ring leaders who are involved in the human trafficking but there is no visible move to arrest them and destroy the syndicates. This is a serious accusation for the government to answer it.
Source: Weekly Holiday
