Exiled by climate, Bangladeshi migrants risk abuse in Gulf

DHAKA - Climate change is forcing ever more Bangladeshis to emigrate to the Gulf in search of a better life but the dream often turns into a reality of abuse and exploitation endured in slave-like conditions, according to a new study.

"Vulnerable people pushed to the brink due to climate shocks take a huge gamble to pay for migration, but often end up in a situation where they face abuse," said Ritu Bharadwaj, one of the report's authors.

The survey of Bangladeshi migrants who moved from climate-vulnerable areas to work in the Gulf showed that nearly all had faced at least one form of exploitation in their new life, be it employer abuse, sexual attack or wage denial, the study found.  

Migrants - most of whom move to states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman - get locked into a form of "modern slavery" after taking out loans or selling land to pay the $4,021 it typically costs to secure work overseas, said the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

The London-based think tank spoke to 648 households to learn how climate change had impacted those living on the frontline.

On the move

Migration has accelerated in the past two decades as the planet grows ever warmer, robbing people of a safe life, stable future or reliable income.

The study found that families in disaster-prone regions were now 1.6 times more likely to move within Bangladesh, and twice as likely to move abroad compared to households living in safer places. Up to 88% of households sent someone abroad this past decade, compared to just 9% from 2001-2010 and 4% in the 1990s.

Bangladesh is the world's seventh most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change, and frequent disasters - from floods to cyclones - are taking a rising toll.

The economic costs of climate-related disasters have jumped four-fold - from about $146 million annually during 1960–1990 to $558 million in the last 30 years.

That cost each family in the disaster-prone coastal area more than $870 a year, the study said, leaving families with less for the staples of life such as food, education or health.

Among those affected were farmers, fishing communities and small business owners whose livelihoods were often the hardest hit, forcing them to seek out better prospects elsewhere. 

Take the district of Pirojpur on the southern coast of Bangladesh, which has faced a slew of destructive floods and cyclones in recent years.  

Teacher Abu Musa said he had sent his younger brother to Dhaka to work as a security guard after last year's monsoon destroyed crops and fisheries owned by his family. 

"Repeated disaster losses make it harder to get through in recent years - and you can at least earn a steady income when you land a job in a place like Dhaka," he told Context.  

But many left only to face new risks and problems in their adopted cities - especially those who had moved abroad.

The study said that migrants in the construction and garment industries in big cities were denied compensation when they had workplace accidents, while domestic workers faced beatings or inadequate food and bedding.

Migrants who move overseas face higher risks as they have no choice but to recoup their high startup costs, said Bharadwaj.

Employers often seize workers' passports and bar them from leaving the workplace, denying them a chance to contact their families or the embassy, the study said.

Women suffer most: more than 80% of domestic workers faced abuses such as beating or sexual harassment in their host households, the survey found.

Where to run?

As the number of Bangladeshi migrants in Gulf countries runs to the millions, embassies often struggle to monitor conditions or mount rescues, said the International Labour Organization.

"The sad part is when a worker faces abuse, they often do not know where to turn to," said Mohammad Rashed Alam Bhuiyan, an assistant professor of political science at the Dhaka University who studies Bangladeshi climate migrants.

The government could outsource essential services - such as  health care or shelter for those at risk - to private organisations, he said.

Helping communities minimise climate-related losses at home could also cut the risk of overseas abuse, said Md Shamsuddoha, chief executive of Dhaka-based research organisation Center for Participatory Research and Development (CPRD).

If families could get early alerts of disasters as well as cash support, they would be better informed and may be more likely to stay, he said.

Experts also pointed to the complex web of brokers helping migrants get work, from the Middle East to Malaysia.

These middlemen are often accused of fraud or deceit, underlining the need to better track the migrants, said Bharadwaj from IIED.

"We should not paint the agents and brokers supporting climate migration as villains - rather the government should register all the middlemen and work with them to ensure minimum standards for workers," she said.

(Reporting by Md. Tahmid Zami; Editing by Jack Graham and Lyndsay Griffiths.)