When death does not put an end to suffering: The plight of deceased Bangladeshi female migrant workers and their families

Illustration: TBS

Moriyom still remembers the day her daughter Shaheda told her she was coming home soon. Over a video call, the 27-year-old told her mother, "I will see you in a week Maa, I cannot stay here any longer."

The week went by and Moriyom went to the airport to pick Shaheda up. "I waited for hours, but she did not come. We called her owner, he told us she was with the police. After some time, he said she was at the hospital. Finally, I heard my daughter was dead."  

Shaheda was a migrant worker in Jordan. She worked there for a year before she died two years ago. According to the doctor's report, she died a 'natural death.' Her dalal (agent) told Moriyom she simply lost consciousness and later died.  

"I remember everything she told me. Every word and every cry she uttered. Her owner used to beat her up mercilessly. On my last video call with Shaheda, she showed me burn marks and hairless spots above her forehead where her madam [owner's wife] poured scalding hot water," Moriyom recalled.

Shaheda is one of the 709 Bangladeshi migrant workers who died in different countries in the world in the last five years. 

According to the study by the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) which revealed the number, 208 workers died in Saudi Arabia and 100 in Jordan. 

Most of them worked as a house help.  

The study showed 159 female migrant workers died of natural causes, while 152 died of a stroke. 87 died from accidents. 

In 69% of cases, the deaths were described as natural, while accidents and suicide caused 31% of the deaths. 

According to RMMRU, the lack of a standard format for classifying the cause of death in countries where these women worked raises questions about 48% of these deaths. 

Not having a morgue at the airport means the bodies usually cannot go through a second autopsy in Dhaka to confirm the cause of death and have to be quickly buried. Families often complain of missing gold jewellery or other expensive belongings of the deceased.  

Often Shaheda's owner would not let her take phone calls from Bangladesh. Moriyom said the beatings were so severe they caused permanent injuries to Shaheda's chest and lungs. "Although they [owner and his wife] took her to the hospital after she fell too sick [from the torture], they flushed the medicines down the toilet." 

But the ordeal does not end with the death of a loved one in a foreign country. 

The families of these migrant workers go through other hassles, beginning from receiving the bodies at the airport to getting compensation. There are times when the news of death comes after days, even months. 

Moriyom received eight months' salary for the one year that Shaheda worked in Jordan. 

Ismail Hossain's mother Taslima died in 2017 and the cause of death was written as 'suicide.' "Knowing my mother, she would have never killed herself. Even if she did, she must have been under tremendous pressure to do so," he said. 

Although Taslima was taken to work for one family, her owners would sometimes send her to their relative's homes to work for them. During those times, she was completely cut off from contacting her family in Bangladesh. 

The news of her death reached Ismail after six months. The dalal who took her to Saudi Arabia tried to negotiate with Taslima's owners who offered to pay SR20,000 (which amounts to a little more than Tk5.5 lakh).

But Ismail did not want the money, he only wanted his mother's body back. 

"Where could I have gone to file legal action? Who would have helped me? We were also told by authorities not to pursue the matter any further after we received her body. So, we kept quiet."

Masum's mother Morjina worked in Dubai for four years. Before her death in 2021, she was working in Saudi Arabia. Her cause of death was mentioned as a stroke, although her family was not aware of her ever being sick. "I spoke to my mother in the morning and in the afternoon, I got a call saying she was in the hospital's ICU," said Masum.

"I begged them to let us see her at least once over a video call but they did not. After four days, we heard she passed away," he added. 

Very few times these victims' families filed a case in local police stations. One of them was the deceased Shajeda's brother Nur Mohammad. Shajeda may have been 17 or 18 years old when she went to Jordan as a domestic help four years ago. 

She worked there for a year before dying from an 'accident.' Nur Mohammad told us she was thrown off the roof. "We filed a case against the dalal at our local police station in Narsingdi. Nothing happened." 

"If she died in Bangladesh, maybe I could have done something. I would have gone from one corner of the country to the other to find out what actually happened to her. Nowadays I wish I could just stop existing," said Nur Mohammad.   

Abiron's case still gives hope

Abiron Begum from Khulna went to Saudi Arabia in 2017. She was murdered by her owner in March 2019. The same year in October, Wage Earners Welfare Board and Brac Migration Programme helped her family bring her body. 

Her death certificate clearly mentioned her cause of death was murder. In December 2020, after the National Human Rights Commission requested the Bangladesh government, the trial began for Abiron's murder case in Saudi Arabia.  

In 2021, Abiron's employer Ayesha al-Jizani was sentenced to death. Her husband Basem Salem was imprisoned for three years and fined SR50,000. Their son Walid Basem Salem was sent to a juvenile correction centre for seven months. 

RMMRU Chair Dr Tasneem Siddiqui said that among the deceased migrant workers, most were in their late 30s and known to be healthy, whereas 10% were said to have health issues such as diabetes and hypertension. 

But they may not have received proper treatment for them. Moreover, some of these normal deaths may actually not be normal deaths.

"When families go to the airport to receive the bodies, there are no proper places to keep them. Sometimes the bodies are kept in the passage or side by side with luggage," she said.  

"If we want to do a second autopsy to confirm the cause of death, we have to keep them in the freezer first. There is not one in the airport. We feel that in the case of bringing bodies to the airport, the civil aviation and tourism authority lacks awareness and empathy, something we can train them in," Dr Tasneem added.

She said it is important for belongings to be returned to the families along with unpaid wages. When the Bangladeshi embassy hears of a migrant workers' death, it tries to learn of her/his unpaid wages and negotiate. To negotiate, the embassy needs to take a power of attorney from the family. 

"These days, we have noticed some private law firms are already taking the power of attorney and cheating the families. They are keeping a good part of the wages themselves. So, the embassy needs to speed up their process to make sure these things do not happen," she advised. 

Dr Tasneem believes if authorities are more efficient, others will come forward with their cases and win, like Abiron's family.  

"Bilaterally, the Bangladesh government has setbacks because it has to negotiate with the labour market, so it is the responsibility of civil society organisations such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development to bring global attention to these cases. We need to use multilateral forums like Colombo Process and Abu Dhabi Dialogue to seek solutions to these problems," she further opined.  

Deceased Morjina's son Masum said, "Those who go abroad, like my mother, they go there to earn some money, that is all. If only the government took care of them like a guardian, maybe they would live longer."