Cheated by local agents and exploited and incarcerated abroad, 340 Bangladeshi workers have been detained again upon their return home recently in what rights activists cited a violation of rights.
Official records show 81 out of an estimated 110 Bangladeshis were earlier stranded in Vietnam and some 255 completed jail terms or received royal pardon in the Middle East.
The hapless workers were brought back home and sent to jail after mandatory quarantine in about two months.
Some of the 'returnees' have been accused of anti-state acts and others blamed for tarnishing the country's image abroad as they were detained.
However, none of them were flown back under any extradition arrangement. No culprit recruiter was also implicated in any cases filed in this connection.
Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) executive director Prof CR Abrar questioned the grounds of arresting the workers and imprisoning them for committing no crime at home.
"It's clearly unlawful," he said arguing that had the workers violated laws in the countries of their destination, they could have been brought to book there.
At least 81 Bangladeshis who were trafficked to Vietnam returned home by a chartered plane two weeks ago. They were arrested and sent to jail on Tuesday.
They were sent with tourist visa after promising safe migration with jobs in Vietnam, the victims and their families said.
In fact, a total of 112 stranded workers were taken home from Vietnam on August 18. Of them, 107 are Bangladeshis.
Exploited by recruiting agents, they protested against employers and recruiting agencies and also demanded their repatriation immediately.
Among them, 81 were detained after 14 days of quarantine in Dhaka.
Sub-inspector Md Anwarul Islam of Turag police station produced them before a metropolitan magistrate, showing them arrested under section 54 of the code of criminal procedure.
Upon prayers for keeping them in jail until the probe is completed, the court sent 81 to jail and freed 26 others.
Two other migrant workers, who returned from Qatar, also landed in jail the same day.
In early July, some 255 migrants were arrested and sent to Kashimpur jail on completion of mandatory quarantine period in Diabari, Uttara.
They came back from Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain during the pandemic period.
Police claimed they were detained for 'tarnishing the country's image abroad' and apprehended that once released, they might commit crime like murder, robbery, terrorism and sabotage.
According to police sources, the detainees might be charged for committing 'anti-government and anti-state' activities, including violent acts.
Most of them were accused of 'being undocumented' and committing petty narcotic offences in the destination countries and received royal pardon after serving half of the punishment or more.
Some were punished for not abiding by telecom rules like illegally selling talk time, which is not considered as any offence in Bangladesh, said Bangladesh Civil Society for Migrants.
The agency demanded immediate release of the workers.
A victim, who was freed after quarantine, said all of them were cheated by recruiting agents.
After landing in Vietnam, they found them captive by middlemen and were sold several times, he told the FE.
Following awful experiences, workers protested against Bangladeshi and Vietnamese brokers and recruiters.
"So, how can the arrest be justified when they are victims?" the man queried.
Tortured physically by a broker named Mustafa, he alleged, "I'm still carrying scars."
Each worker spent between Tk 400,000 and Tk 500,000 as migration cost, the returnee said.
"My colleagues were arrested as they demonstrated outside Bangladesh Embassy in Hanoi to protest against the malpractices of manpower recruiters."
However, the recruiters managed to keep themselves out of touch due to their unholy nexus with powerful vested interests, according to allegations.
In favour of detention of workers, police mentioned that when coronavirus cases surged globally, their sentences were commuted and repatriated to Bangladesh.
On the issue of the country's image abroad, Mr Abrar said if the image is tarnished, it is because of acts like extrajudicial killing at home and imprisonment of a parliamentarian abroad on trafficking allegations.
Shariful Hasan, head of Brac's Migration Programme, brushed aside the allegations against the workers, terming the charges 'baseless'.
"It's a misdemeanour to the helpless workers. Through such acts, the dishonest manpower recruiting agents and their brokers rather get the green light to continue their illegal activities," he observed.
Shakirul Islam, chairman of Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme (OKUP), said certain quarters involved in unethical migration process acted in implicating the workers in police cases so they could skip punishment.
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