High Court and the court delivered the 10 directives to the government including for taking
immediate steps to prohibit employment of children up to the age of 12 including
employment in the domestic sector, particularly with the view to ensuring that children up
to the age of 12 attend school and need to obtain the basic education. To eradicate
child/forced labour particularly worst forms of child labour in Bangladesh the Commission
has launched several stakeholder’s consultations through its thematic committee on Child
Rights. In collaboration with ILO the Commission has conducted several researches to
review the existing laws and policies with the aim to reduce child labour.
37. Annually, many workers leave Bangladesh for overseas employment. International labour
migration is an integral part of Bangladesh's economy and development since last three
decades. An exclusive law governs matters related to migrant workers in the country. The
Overseas Employment and Migrants (OEM) Act 2013, emphasizing in its preamble, that it
is “expedient and necessary to promote opportunities for overseas employment and
establish a safe and fair system of labour migration, to ensure rights and welfare of migrant
workers and members of their families”. Per the International Labour Organization, this is
the first-ever law on labour migration passed by the Parliament of Bangladesh and one that
derives principles from the International Labour Standards and the UN Conventions and
recommendations.
38. The Commission welcomes the adoption of Expatriates’ Welfare and Oversees
Employment Policy 2016; to ensure good governance and efficient administration relating
to migrant workers’ welfare. The policy takes a human-right based approach and follows
the CMW. Further, the policy specifically focusses on safe migration of female workers38.
It provides for an increase of female staff at the labour wings39 of foreign missions, provide
training and capacity building for staff on protection and safety of female migrant workers,
monitoring of workplaces and required legal, counselling, health and financial advice to
the female migrant workers. The Commission is pleased to note progressive intentions and
would urge authorities to implement these policy guidelines in its letter and spirit. Despite
efforts, the Commission is concerned of migrant workers particularly women deprived of
their basic rights in host countries, rising cost of migration and weaknesses in the system
to hold fraudulent recruiting agents accountable. The Commission strongly advocates with
the government to take measures to address these issues immediately.
39. The Commission notes the importance of effective implementation of the National Skills
Development Policy40, 2013. While appreciating key achievements under the policy the
Commission would like to place emphasis on several gaps and challenges identified in a
recent report 41 related to this policy. As per the report better coordination among
38
The policy identifies challenges for women migrant workers who take jobs in unregulated low-skilled sectors, such as domestic work
etc. This should be addressed and diversified work should be identified for them. Further, the major challenge the female migrant
workers fact is lack of information relating to jobs and migration. The policy has proposed a set of guidelines for the improvement of
the situation of the female migrant workers, amongst others, to adopt a plan of action through a participatory approach them and for
better improvement allocate more gender sensitive budget.
39
Section 2.3.10: to increase financial and human resources leading to the establishment of ‘Labour Welfare Resource Centre’ and thus
strengthening the roles and functions of the Labour Wings of the Foreign Missions abroad.
40
The government in 2013 approved and adopted the National Skills Development Policy with the objective of improving employability
of citizens locally and overseas.
41
National skills development in Bangladesh 2015 , page 2 (http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---ilodhaka/documents/publication/wcms_445255.pdf)
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