The long road home for Bangladesh’s migrant women

Mahmud Sultana spoke without notes, her voice carrying the exhaustion of travel, labour and return. 

"We went abroad with hardship, and we came back with hardship," she said, asking the state to see women like her not as numbers, but as citizens who had worked, endured and returned with little to show for it.

Around her sat women from Gopalganj, Faridpur, Nayapara, and other areas, many meeting for the first time, bound together by the same journey: migration that promised dignity but delivered precarity.

This gathering was part of a broader effort by Badabon Sangho, a grassroots organisation that has spent years tracing the lives of migrant women workers — mostly aged between their early 20s and late 40s — before departure, during overseas employment, and after return. 

The women primarily migrate to Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries, working largely in domestic and caregiving roles, sectors marked by isolation, informality and limited legal protection.

Through confidential, in-depth interviews conducted in the field, Badabon documented a pattern that extends beyond individual abuse. It is shaped by how migration is governed, negotiated and, ultimately, controlled.

Badabon's research shows that migration often begins from a position of vulnerability. Before leaving the country, 27.6% of women were not engaged in any income-generating work, while 24.4% were confined to unpaid domestic labour. 

Nearly half, 47.2%, migrated while married, and another 24.4% left while unmarried in order to support their families financially.

The state's migration architecture promises protection. Agencies such as BMET and BOESL oversee registration, training, visa verification and contracts. 

Pre-departure training is offered through Technical Training Centres, often at low or no cost, and loans are available through the Probashi Kallyan Bank at interest rates as low as 3–4%. On paper, the system is robust.

Yet the space between policy and practice is where informal power takes hold. Recruiters and brokers step in where state oversight weakens, shaping migration decisions through misinformation, debt and dependency. 

Pre-departure training is often rushed or superficial, grievance mechanisms abroad remain distant or inaccessible, and embassy support is limited once abuse occurs.

When women face harassment, non-payment of wages or confinement, many are discouraged from reporting, fearing deportation, retaliation or blacklisting. Those who return — often traumatised, unpaid or injured — find rehabilitation schemes fragmented, underfunded or absent altogether, pushing them back into poverty and, in many cases, into another cycle of unsafe migration.

Badabon found that 32.2% of women who migrated without training did so through brokers; nearly half relied on middlemen. Training centres themselves can accommodate between 120 and 250 trainees per batch, far below actual demand. Those who leave outside formal channels are excluded from state rehabilitation on return, locked out by legality.

Once overseas, the first barriers women reported were language and food. But these were only the surface. According to the survey, 65.9% of migrant women faced problems during overseas employment. Among them, 30.8% struggled to secure basic necessities such as food, clothing and wages.

Abuse was widespread. Badabon's data shows that 42% of migrant women experienced physical or psychological violence, including beatings, confinement and denial of contact with home. Crucially, this persisted despite training: nearly 68% of those who had received skills training were still abused, underscoring that training alone does not guarantee safety.

Low wages offered little compensation; most earned under Tk20,000 a month, even as their labour continued to sustain the economy through remittances.

Why does protection fail? The control lies upstream, in the bilateral labour agreements that govern migration to the Middle East. Clauses related to worker welfare, reporting mechanisms and accountability are weakly negotiated.

Recruiters and brokers step in where state oversight weakens, shaping migration decisions through misinformation, debt and dependency. Pre-departure training is often rushed or superficial, grievance mechanisms abroad remain distant or inaccessible, and embassy support is limited once abuse occurs.

While countries such as Nepal, India and Singapore have pushed harder — securing stronger rights and monitoring systems — Bangladesh has prioritised numbers. Success is measured by how many workers are sent and how much remittance returns, rather than by the absence of abuse, or by the strength of bilateral agreements, the safety of broker-free migration channels, and mandatory rehabilitation for returnee women.

Bangladesh has multiple laws, including the Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Act 2013, the National Migration and Development Policy 2016, the Human Trafficking Prevention Act 2012, and provisions for bilateral MoUs, all designed to ensure rights, safe migration and rehabilitation. 

Institutions ranging from the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare to district-level migration centres operate nationwide. Yet, compared to peer countries, these frameworks remain weakly enforced and poorly leveraged in negotiations abroad.

Fariha Jesmin, programme manager at Badabon Sangho, said, "Protecting migrant workers' rights requires strong labour laws, safe migration pathways, and government responsibility from recruitment to reintegration. Policies must also account for women's specific risks and ensure fair recruitment, protection and dignified return."

Nepal, for instance, has secured destination-country commitments on minimum wages, employer-paid recruitment costs and joint monitoring mechanisms, while the Philippines embeds mandatory welfare desks, legal aid and reintegration support for returnee workers within its bilateral agreements.

Bangladesh, by contrast, often signs MoUs that prioritise deployment targets over enforceable protections, reflecting a system that exists on paper but lacks the negotiating muscle and accountability needed to translate policy into protection.

Yet 41.5% of returnee women remain unaware of any government support programmes. Legal protection exists, but information does not reach those who need it most.

Return does not end the struggle. After coming back, 57% of women identified economic hardship as their greatest challenge. A further 30.9% faced neglect from their families, and 24.4% reported emotional distance from spouses, children or relatives.

In Pabna, many returnee women were divorced. Today, 52.8% remain unemployed and dependent on their husband's or father's family. The money they once sent home defined their worth; without it, new forms of control and abuse begin.

There are three reasons migrant women remain trapped in lifelong poverty: the lack of counselling and mental health care, limited access to job placement or skill recognition, and the absence of financial guidance or reliable savings support.

Syed Touhid Mahmud, research officer at Badabon Sangho, said, "We believe migrant women are a driving force of the country, and we believe that the government formed through this election will take stronger measures to negotiate with countries that host our workers."

This is not a failure of policy, but of power. Without stronger negotiations abroad, the dismantling of informal control, and a fundamental policy rewrite, the system will continue as it is.

This article has been produced in association with Badabon Sangho.