There has been a sharp reaction in Bangladesh on the news of two Bangladeshi citizens including a woman being given death sentence in Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, discussion has started once again regarding the safety of Bangladeshi women workers working there.
A large number of workers, mostly women, who have gone from Bangladesh to work abroad in the last two years, are in Saudi Arabia. After this comes Jordan's turn.
According to government data, from January 2024 to mid-October this year, more than 1 lakh 72 thousand women workers have gone abroad from Bangladesh. Of these, about 1 lakh 20 thousand women went to Saudi Arabia.
It has also been seen that since September this year, more than 1,500 women workers have returned to their country. Of these, about 1,000 women have returned from Saudi Arabia.
Organizations working with returning women workers say that physical and mental harassment, non-payment or non-payment of salary and sexual harassment are the main reasons due to which most of the women workers have to return.
Shakirul Islam, president of one such organization, Migrant Workers Development Program (OKAP), says that complete information about how many women from across the country are forced to return from abroad every year is not available.
He told BBC Bangla, "In a study conducted on women who returned in July last year, we found that 90 percent of the women had returned due to physical and mental torture."
Ghulam Masih, former ambassador of Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia, says that the issue of their safety was not properly taken into account in the agreement signed between Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh a decade ago regarding domestic workers.
When asked questions on these issues, an official of Bangladesh's Migrant Welfare Ministry only said that this issue is being discussed regularly with Saudi officials.
Under Vision 2030, Saudi authorities made changes to labor laws a few years ago to ensure the safety of workers.
At that time, Saudi Arabia had said that these changes would give foreign workers more freedom to move and change jobs.
In December 2024, Saudi Press Agency had reported that Saudi Arabia has changed the rules related to the appointment of domestic and other workers.
According to these rules, employers cannot force workers to do any work that is not mentioned in their employment contract.
Similarly, it is also prohibited to force workers to work for a third party or to require them to perform hazardous work that may endanger their health, physical safety or dignity.
But despite these rules, allegations of harassment of Bangladeshi women workers in Saudi Arabia did not stop.
Last year, government news agency BSS had reported that Bangladesh started sending workers to Saudi Arabia for the first time in 1976.
Since then, more than 30 lakh Bangladeshi workers have worked in Saudi Arabia. The biggest source of sending foreign currency to Bangladesh is Saudi Arabia.
But since the beginning of the last decade, there was widespread protest when large numbers of women workers returned home after facing harassment. After this, in 2015, both the countries signed an agreement regarding domestic workers.
Female domestic workers working on two-year contracts were to receive a salary of 800 Saudi Riyals every month. It was also said that domestic workers will be able to go to Saudi Arabia without any fees.
But quoting returning women workers, NGOs claimed that many women did not receive their salaries. In some cases, they were harassed for demanding salary and then sent back.
Sources in the Bangladeshi embassies in Riyadh and Jeddah say that the crisis has increased due to large numbers of women being sent without the necessary training and skills.
Ghulam Masih, former ambassador of Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia, says that their interests and security were not properly taken into account in the agreement related to domestic workers.
She told BBC Bangla, "Many important things were not included in that agreement. After this, the agents started bringing girls from remote villages and sending them to Saudi Arabia without any training. This further complicated the crisis. Many simple girls from the villages had to face difficulties after going there. We created a safe shelter home for them. After some time, a large number of Bangladeshi women started coming there."
It is said that in August 2011, Indonesia had stopped sending female workers abroad after cases of harassment.
After this, Saudi Arabia turned to Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal to send women workers and put pressure on them.
Nepal and Sri Lanka refused to send workers at salaries less than 1,700 riyals per month.
On the other hand, the Philippines reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia that its female workers would be housed in hostels of Saudi companies instead of the employers' homes.
In such a situation, under pressure from Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh agreed to a compromise to recruit domestic workers at a monthly salary of only 850 riyals.
Later, when the issue of harassment of Bangladeshi women workers was raised, in August 2019, the then Minister of State for Labor and Social Welfare of Saudi Arabia expressed anger at the representatives of the Bangladeshi Embassy.
The main reason for their anger was why the Bangladeshi workers were complaining against their Saudi employers and wanted to return home immediately.
Ghulam Masih, who was Bangladesh's ambassador to Saudi Arabia at that time, said, "The problem was due to lack of training and language skills. This is what Saudi officials were saying at that time. Before sending the domestic workers, we had talked about giving them information about the facilities available there and training them to operate the modern equipment used in homes. But because of the agencies, these things did not get any importance."
Mr. Masih said, "We tried to arrange hostels for the Bangladeshi workers like the Filipino workers. But due to many reasons this could not happen."
On July 9 this year, a report by the international organization Amnesty International revealed several cases of torture against Filipino women workers in Saudi Arabia.
These include overwork, exploitation, abusive behavior and in some cases sexual harassment.
The report, titled 'Once we enter their homes, we are no longer human', documented the experiences of 19 women who were abused and who the organization spoke to.
Most of these women returned to their country between 2023 and 2026.
Nepal had earlier banned sending female workers to Saudi Arabia in 1998.
In the same year, there was widespread outrage across the country after the suicide of a Nepali domestic worker who had faced torture in Kuwait.
After this the authorities banned women from going to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Qatar. This ban was later lifted in 2022, but no agreement was reached to send Nepali domestic workers to Saudi Arabia.
Despite this, a large number of Nepali women workers are visible in Saudi Arabia, because Nepali women keep going there through different routes as domestic workers.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government has said that it is not interested in sending female domestic workers to Saudi Arabia.
Responding to Amnesty International's report, the Saudi government said domestic workers are protected under existing regulations and any complaints of abuse are taken seriously and investigated.
