Families of deceased expats wait long for compensation

The families of about 6060 expatriates who had died abroad have been waiting from three to 20 years for compensation, according to latest reports of the Wage Earners Welfare Board.

These families are suffering due to the lack of coordination amongst various ministries and departments.

On 27 April 2001 construction worker Omar Faruk died in an accident while working in Saudi Arabia. His eldest daughter Jannatul Ferdous was 14 at the time. According to the rules, the family was supposed to get two million taka in compensation from the company where he had been employed. Jannat travelled several times from Lakkhipur to Dhaka to the bureau of manpower, employment and training (BMET). Many letters went back and forth. Time passed, Jannat got married, had children, but is yet to receive her compensation money for her father's death.

Among 6060 such applications for compensation, 3773 lie with the welfare board in Dhaka and the district employment bureau offices. And 2387 like pending in 22 embassies.

Over the past decade, about 27,839 Bangladeshis died overseas. One third of them died in accidents.

If anyone dies due to unnatural causes or in accidents overseas, the person or company responsible for the death is to pay compensation. And if the deceased person is a legal worker, Bangladesh expatriates welfare ministry's wage earners welfare board (from April 2013) is to pay 300 thousand taka. Previously the Bangladesh government would not make any payments in the case of such deaths.

The wage earners welfare board says that in most cases it takes an inordinate time to collect compensation from the concerned person or company abroad as the Bangladesh embassies do not take any initiative. The officials say that in a certain instance, 18 letters were written but the Bangladesh embassy in the concerned country failed to respond. As a result, these matters remain unresolved. The families go on suffering year after year.

On the other hand, sources in the welfare board say that till October this year 250 million taka has been deposited in the welfare board's account, but they are not paying it to the concerned families.

Matiur Rahman, deputy managing director of the wage earners board, tells Prothom Alo, "When an accident occurs, a case is filed. The family of the victims is to give a power of attorney. This is attested by the foreign ministry and sent to the Bangladesh embassy in the concerned country. Then the embassy can begin procedures. Many departments are involved and so the process takes time.

CR Abrar, professor of international relations at Dhaka University and coordinator of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), has said, "In most cases the families do not receive compensation due to lack of coordination between the embassies and the welfare board. If the relevant papers are submitted in time to the embassy in the country where the accidents has occurred, compensation will be paid. I have spoken to several labour officers and they say that the relevant documents are often not sent to them from Bangladesh. On the other hand the expatriates' welfare ministry says that the embassies do not respond. Actually the irresponsibility of both sides has caused this plight. The ministry should form a task force to speedily resolve this problem."

Khandakar Shaukat Hossain, secretary of the expatriate and overseas employment ministry, has said, "There are often delays in ascertaining that the compensation doesn't go into wrong hands and there are also bureaucratic formalities. We will try to resolve this problem."

In the various countries: The highest number of persons who have died while working aboard but whose families have not received compensation is in Saudi Arabia. Of them the families of 2374 who died in Riyadh and 1032 who died in Jeddah have not received compensation.

The next is UAE. The families of 771 who died in Abu Dhabi and 398 in Dubai have not been compensated.

In Malaysia there are 607 such cases, in Singapore 203, in Kuwait 189, in Bahrain 202, in Libya 92, in Lebanon 31, in Italy 22, in Egypt 11, in Brunei 9, in Greece and Jordan 8 each, in South Africa 7, Maldives 6, Mauritius, and in Germany and South Korea one each.