Obtenció corba de dispersió

The Bangladeshi government has set 84,000 taka (equivalent to 1,050 Canadian dollars) as the maximum charge that recruiting agencies can ask from temporary workers going to the Middle East (except those in the domestic worker category) (Martin, 2010; Rahman, 2012). During my fieldwork in Bangladesh, I was advised by the Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment in Bangladesh that as per the immigration law, a Bangladeshi recruiting agency can charge no more than 20,000 taka (250 Canadian dollars) as its service fee for sending a domestic worker to the Middle East. For all other female temporary workers, he told me the maximum designated amount for an agency is 84,000 taka (1,050 Canadian dollars). However, the extent to which recruiting agencies actually comply with the government designated amount is questionable. For example, Rahman’s study (2012) on recruitment costs of Bangladeshi workers to the Gulf finds recruiting agencies often charge the candidate much more than the designated maximum amount. My data confirm this and display a similar pattern. In every instance, the women in the sample paid a higher amount to brokers than

124 the officially designated service charge. The lowest amount charged was 30,000 taka, and the highest was 300,000 taka. This translates to 375and 3,750 Canadian dollars respectively.17

I tried to inquire further about this high intermediary fee. Specifically, I wanted to understand why Middle East bound temporary workers from Bangladesh have to pay an exorbitant price for their migration. I asked the two Bangladeshi recruiting agency proprietors and two sub-agents (who were my informants) about this, but they avoided answering my question. In addition, although I made every effort, I could not find any way to learn about the fee-sharing and profit-making endeavours of sub-agents and recruiting agencies in Bangladesh, or the fee sharing and profit making activities of dalals who transnationally participate in recruitment.

Consequently, my questions about why each of the Bangladeshi women in this study uniformly paid an usurious amount to brokers or, to put it differently, what accounted for the high cost of Bangladeshi women’s migration remained unanswered. I therefore consulted the scholarly literature on the Middle East. I found Rahman`s (2012) research on Bangladeshi temporary workers’ migration to the Gulf states particularly useful. Rahman observes that Bangladeshi workers going to the Gulf need to pay a substantially higher amount to

intermediaries who remain involved in their recruitment and relocation process. These workers often pay their intermediaries a fee well above the maximum designated amount (84,000 Bangladeshi taka or 1,050 Canadian dollars). Rahman divides the cost of recruitment of Bangladeshi temporary workers to the Gulf States into two components: formal fees and intermediary fees. Included in the formal fees are all mandatory departure expenses (for

17 _{Unless otherwise stated, all currency conversions mentioned in this study have been based on the}

exchange rate between Bangladeshi taka and Canadian dollars (1 Canadian Dollar= 80 BD Taka) at the time of my fieldwork (October 2010 – April 2011) in Bangladesh.

125 example, passport fees, air fare and all other government fees associated with the departure process). Intermediary fees represent the amount the candidate pays to all intermediaries (for example, recruiting agencies, their sub-agents and other dalals). Rahman finds that almost 77 per cent of the cost of recruitment borne by a Bangladeshi temporary worker who migrates to Gulf is due to intermediary fees; only 23 per cent represents formal fees.

Why must Gulf bound Bangladeshi temporary workers pay an exorbitant intermediary fee? One possible explanation, according to Rahman, is the system of “visa-trading”- an institutionalized practice of selling temporary work visas by sponsor employers to intermediaries. Visa-trading has been noted by scholars in the context of contemporary temporary workers’ recruitment to the Middle East (for example, De-Bel Air, 2011; Rahman, 2012; Shah, 2008). Rahman’s study, in particular, observes that sponsor employers in the Middle East sell visas to intermediaries for different prices, depending on the job category. Having bought a visa from the sponsor employer, a recruiting agency in the Middle East can sell the visa to its counterpart recruiting agency in Bangladesh. The recruiting agency in Bangladesh can then sell the visa to someone who wants to work in the Middle East. In this process, the agency often uses sub-agents who travel to villages to recruit people willing to work in the Middle East. Alternatively, an independent broker in the Middle East can buy a visa from a Middle Eastern sponsor and then sell it to a candidate in Bangladesh.18 _{The visa obtained by the candidate, either}

through a sub-agent or an independent broker, involves a service charge which covers the cost of buying the visa in addition and gives the intermediary a handsome profit. In this scenario, the possibility that a candidate could be economically exploited by an intermediary is very high.

126 Rahman’s explanation of visa-trading in the context of Bangladeshi temporary workers’ recruitment in the Middle East was useful to my study. These women received their visas

through a sub-agent or a recruiting agency in Bangladesh or an independent broker in the Middle East.19 _{Therefore, it seemed likely that the visas were sold to the intermediaries by sponsor}

employers in the Middle East; Bangladeshi women, in turn, had to compensate by paying a high amount.

To cover their costs of migration, women were assisted by family members, relatives, neighbours and acquaintances from their social circles. Twenty eight of my sample borrowed money from their extended family, relatives, neighbours and acquaintances. Such loans did not involve any interest payments. Two used their personal savings to partially bear the expense. Six women were given money by their father, mother, daughter or sister; the amount was enough to bear all expenses associated with their departure arrangement. Out of the 28 women who borrowed to finance their migration, 21 were able to pay off their debt with the money they earned working in the Middle East, while seven failed to repay their debt in the long-run.

Of the 34 Bangladeshi women in the sample, 17 sent most of their salary to their families in Bangladesh; they spent the remainder of their savings on the family after their return. Ten out of 34 women significantly improved their families’ economic condition with the money they saved; they bought land, cows and made joint accounts with their husband/ sister/ brother. The other seven women in the study who went to Lebanon as domestic workers experienced extremely abusive situations and came back to Bangladesh empty handed. 20

19 _{Four of these independent brokers in the Middle East networked with their families in Bangladesh to}

ultimately hand over visas to the candidates.

127 The economic investment in migration to the Middle East seems to have involved a high risk, for the women and their families and for any others who assisted women in their migration. Given the extremely volatile work environment of female temporary workers in the Middle East, the net return on the considerable money invested in their recruitment was always unpredictable.