Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury. File photo

SANGSAD BHABAN, April 05, 2026 (BSS) - Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury today told Parliament that more than 1.5 crore expatriate Bangladeshis are now in 176 foreign countries across the world.

"Currently, more than 15 million Bangladeshis are working in 176 countries around the world," he said, while responding to a tabled question from Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami lawmaker Md Amir Hamza (Kushtia-3).

The minister said the current government is committed to ensuring the dignity, rights and welfare of all these expatriate Bangladeshis.

During the previous fascist government, the welfare of the expatriates was grossly neglected, he said.

"After the current government took office, various steps have been taken and implemented for their welfare," he added.

Highlighting the steps taken by the present government, he said the Wage Earners Welfare Board allocates funds annually through 30 labour welfare wings of Bangladeshi missions stationed in 27 countries to provide administrative, legal and welfare services.

Legal services are being provided through legal assistants to expatriate workers and to recover death compensation for Bangladeshis who die abroad. To ensure these services, 11 mission labor welfare law firms/panel lawyers have already been initially appointed, he said.

The other steps include arranging travel clearance for workers facing passport related complications to return home; providing legal support to detained workers and facilitating their release; resolving workplace disputes to ensure payment of dues and rights; and addressing housing-related problems of expatriate workers.

The government has taken further steps, including ensuring immediate rescue and repatriation of female workers in danger, establishing safe homes under embassies and high commissions for women workers, regularly visiting hospitals to ensure proper treatment of sick and injured workers, repatriating bodies of deceased workers with finance from the wage earner welfare board, covering medical costs when employers fail and providing support through a 24/7 expatriate call centre in case of facing any problem.

In reply to another tabled question from treasury bench lawmaker Shafiqur Rahman Kiron (Shariatpur-2), the Expatriates' Welfare Minister said the current government's election manifesto includes various plans for the welfare and employment of expatriates.

"The Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment is working to implement the government's election manifesto. A 180-day action plan has already been formulated," he said.

He said it is not possible for the government alone to carry out the process of migration of manpower or workers abroad. In view of this, as part of the involvement of the private sector in this process, licenses are issued in favor of private recruiting agencies.

In case of sending workers at the private level, it is mandatory to obtain a clearance from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), a department under this ministry, he said.

Ariful Haque said the government has taken steps to expand the labour market and increase manpower export to developed countries in Asia, including Dubai.

Highlighting the steps, he said diplomatic discussions are ongoing with countries with closed/shrinked labour markets for Bangladeshi workers to send workers to Malaysia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

He said Bangladesh is sending workers to various countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Romania, Seychelles, Portugal, Russia, among others, which are among the major labour markets of Bangladesh. Memorandums of Understanding/Agreements have been signed with 18 countries regarding the sending of workers from Bangladesh, he added.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the BMET and the International Manpower Development Organization, Japan (IM Japan), workers are being sent to Japan as technical interns without immigration costs, he further said.

According to an agreement signed between the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment and Japan, emphasis has been placed on Japanese language education with the aim of sending 100,000 workers in the next five years, and a separate cell called "Japan Cell" has been formed in this ministry with the aim of sending more workers, added Ariful.

He said the government has undertaken a project titled "Providing Driving Training for Employment in the Country and Abroad" to train 100,000 drivers, which is successfully underway.

The minister said 1,132,519 workers were employed abroad in 2025. Of them, 62,352 are female workers.