It’s Disgraceful When Remittance Warriors Are Stripped of Their Dignity

On October 14, 2026, Two Bangladeshi nationals were quietly executed in Saudi Arabia, raising an alarming shadow over the condition of Bangladeshi foreign workers in the Middle East. The two have been beheaded by Saudi authorities in Makkah for allegedly committing an "immoral act" in a local mosque. The Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement that the men were put on trial for "ta'zir," a form of discretionary punishment under Islamic law. But the murky judicial proceedings did not provide any significant public information or legal clarity on the type of the charges, nor did it provide enough information about the legal defense provided to the accused before arriving at the verdict.

One of the most disturbing facts of the trial and execution is that the Saudi authorities did not notify the Bangladesh Consulate General in Jeddah of the death sentences. Conventionally, the host country must inform the embassy of its citizens if foreigners encounter serious legal consequences, such as capital punishment. The Bangladesh mission in Jeddah confirmed that it was not provided any advance notification or documents about their residence, passport or charges. After the news, the Bangladeshi diplomatic mission had to issue a formal note verbale to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs for formal recognition and clarification of legal proceedings.

The swiftness and brutality with which the Saudi courts carried out the execution of these two migrants contrasts starkly with the systematic inaction of the country's authorities over the years in the case of thousands of Bangladeshi domestic workers who have been subject to severe human rights abuses. Foreign female domestic workers in Saudi Arabia suffer from brutal physical abuse, psychological torture, forced labour, sexual abuse and are left without legal redress or intervention by the Saudi legal system in the event of allegations of ‘moral offence’.

Hundreds of Bangladeshi women are coming back home every year empty-handed, with deep psychological and physical scars. Official migration records show that at least 2,315 Bangladeshi women domestic workers were forced to leave Saudi Arabia prematurely between 2018 and 2019, most of whom said they faced systematic physical and sexual abuse. Of the 110 women who returned in August 2019, 35 percent said they were brutally abused. Of them, 38 women suffered double physical and sexual torture and 48 lost their wages altogether.

The impact of these unchecked abuses on people is laid bare in official statistics on the number of arrivals at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. From 2016 to September 2020, 473 Bangladeshi women have died in the Middle East in their coffins, including 175 in Saudi Arabia alone. At least 81 of those women died in Saudi Arabia as a result of being subjected to relentless sexual assaults and confinement by their owners, revealed official investigations and death certificates. A 2019 Al Jazeera report on the situation reported that at least 66 Bangladeshi women died in Saudi Arabia between 2015 and 2018, the majority of whom were confirmed victims of suicides over intolerable torture by their employers at home.

This crisis is linked to the wider structural exploitation of labour in the Gulf labour markets. Bangladesh has been exporting low-skilled workers to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in large numbers for decades, mostly through the rigid Kafala (sponsorship) scheme. These hosts countries witness high level of systemic abuse including low wages, long working hours of 16 to 18 hours, lack of basic health services, passport seizure and unhygienic and unsafe working environment in overcrowded labour camps against Bangladeshi migrants. The structural power imbalance makes foreign workers highly vulnerable to their employers and unable to escape from bad workplaces or to take legal action.

Bangladesh has enacted domestic labor laws to ensure protection of its citizens engaged in domestic employment and abroad, mainly through the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act, 2013. Section 19 of the Act bans recruitment practices that are fraudulent, and false promises about conditions of employment overseas, Section 20 requires a written contract of employment that details wages, working hours and accommodation before leaving the country. Moreover, Section 25 of the bill provides migrant workers with the right to legal assistance, consular protection and emergency repatriation through state channels, and Section 31 imposes severe penalties, including criminal prosecution and withdrawal of licenses, on the recruitment agencies that are involved in labour trafficking or exploitation. However, these statutory protections are being undermined by gaps in implementation, lack of enforcement and corrupt middlemen brokers.

The root cause of this catastrophe is a chain of sub-agents and brokers in rural Bangladesh, who prey on their clients. These go-between people have a great deal of control over these vulnerable families with their seductive offers of high-paying jobs, nice homes and a permanent contract. As a consequence of economic crisis, brokers charge excessive fees, force families into high debt bondage, and provide fake visas to ensure that the worker enters into a foreign country where he is trapped into a highly exploitative and unfree labour market.

In addition to the legal restrictions, the basic problem is the institutional inertia of diplomatic missions in destination countries. Consular officials may feel powerless to intervene before local courts when the migrant worker is subjected to arbitrary detention, criminal prosecution, or to serious domestic violence. Consular officials may not have the mandate, budget or legal access to effectively intervene before local courts in cases of arbitrary detention, criminal prosecution or serious domestic violence. With the absence of legal defense teams, in addition to embassies in high-risk migration corridors, low-wage workers must go it alone to fend off summary trials in courts with no standards and death sentences without lawyers.

Rural poverty and unemployment make thousands of workers vulnerable to engaging in high-risk migration debts, as the wide-spread socio-economic conditions inside Bangladesh further compound these vulnerabilities. Potential migrants often have to take out loans in order to pay the recruitment agents, who charge exorbitant interest rates, or to sell off family assets, thus incurring the debt bondage as soon as they arrive. The economic precariousness forces workers to accept abusive treatment, nonpayment, and physical violence, and leaving their home early means that they will face permanent economic destruction and social stigma.

For ending this vicious circle of exploitation, Bangladesh has to urgently review its labor diplomacy and push for bilateral responsibility from the countries in the Gulf region. There is a need for the government to ensure that all legal detentions are reported to the consulate at the time of detention, the creation of emergency defense funds to provide local defense attorneys for citizens accused of the crime and legal literacy programs to be included in pre-departure training. Moreover, bilateral labour MoUs should be renegotiated to include clear penalties for abusive employers and include independent monitoring systems, thereby preventing the loss of basic human rights in return for economic benefits of migrant workers.


MD. Noor Hamza Peash studies Law
in World University of 
Bangladesh, Dhaka.