Past Events 2024

The Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) organized a training session for the skill development of sub-agents in the Tangail district. The training was organized on 30 March 2024 at Buro Bangladesh, Tangail. 31 male and female sub-agents participated in the training. The primary objective of the training session was to enhance the skills and knowledge of sub-agents in the Tangail district.

The sessions covered the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act -2013, their roles and responsibilities, and challenges and mitigation strategies for promoting safe and ethical migration practices. This training addressed the challenges often encountered by sub-agents in their work, such as fraudulent practices, exploitation, complexities, etc. They have identified strategies to overcome these challenges and cope with them effectively.

Output of the Training

• Participants received detailed information about the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act, 2013, and its Amendment Act.
• Sub-agents informed about their specific roles and responsibilities within the migration sector.
• Sub-agents participated in the training voluntarily, indicating their commitment to enhancing their skills and knowledge in their field of work.

Major sessions were conducted by Marina Sultana, Director of Programme RMMRU, Ms. Rabeya Nasrin, Project Coordinator, and Ms. Nazma Akhter, Field Coordinator of RMMRU. Major training sessions included defining migration and migrants, Migration Act 2013, roles and responsibilities of sub-agents, challenges and mitigation strategies, etc. The training employed methodologies such as group work presentations, experience sharing, question-answer sessions, etc. 

On 24 March 2024, the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) and the Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training (BMET) jointly organised a Findings Dissemination Event on Capacity Analysis of District Employment and Manpower Offices (DEMO). The event was organised at the BMET Conference Room, engaging officials from the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, BMET, DEMO, and Civil Society.

Ms. Zohora Monsur, Deputy Director (Employment), BMET, and Mohammad Inzamul Haque, Project Manager, RMMRU, moderated the programme and shared the objectives of the event. RMMRU’s Executive Director, Dr. C R Abrar, presented the findings and recommendations from the analysis. The methodology of the analysis included interviewing DEMO officials, key BMET officials, former MoEWOE officials, beneficiaries at the field level, leading CSOs working with migrant workers, lawyers engaged in migration-related litigation, and utilising the information captured from the discussion of 2-day BMET-RMMRU joint residential workshop with 18 DEMO officials. Assistant Directors from 6 DEMOs- Bogura, Chattogram, Cumilla, Dhaka, Manikganj, and Narsingdi- were nominated by BMET and participated in the event. Mr. Saleh Ahmed Mujaffor, Director General (Grade-1), BMET, was present as the Chief Guest. 

DG BMET, in his speech, said, "This is the age of innovation. There is no alternative to it. We have to find out what is to be done next. I thank RMMRU for doing this work."  BMET Director Mr. Mohammad Abdul Hi, PAA said, “We need to make our database strong. We need to think out of the box and work accordingly. Another thing is that to increase efficiency, we need to include DEMO-assigned welfare officers at missions abroad. Ms. Zohora Mansur, Deputy Director, BMET, suggested that "DEMOs should have access to the migrant database. This will help in returnee reintegration as well if the DEMOs have access." From the MoEWOE, Mr. Shimul Kumar Saha, Senior Assistant Secretary, said, "We can go for a software base management system that will begin at the DEMO level and end at the BMET. DEMO should take care of overseas employment, and TTC will do training-related work."

Among other BMET officials, Director Sadeq Ahmad, Deputy Director Mr. Md. Mizanur Rahaman, and Deputy Director Mr. Mohammad Ali Siddiqui participated in the event and provided valuable insights.

RMMRU organised two batches of capacity-building training for Grievance Management Committees (GMCs) on 9 and 10 March 2024 at Narsingdi Club, Narsingdi. The objective of this training was to enhance the competencies of GMC members in migration mediation and access to legal service mechanisms at the grassroots level. 35 GMC members, youth volunteer group members, and 3 Union Porishod Chairmans attended each training session. This training is organised with the support of Justice at the Door Step Project, supported by the Asia Foundation under PERI.

Key objectives of the training included:

• Enhancing knowledge of GMCs in the Migration sector, improving skills, and promoting the capacity and credibility of GMCs in migration mediation.
• Improving GMC members' knowledge about access to justice mechanisms, the Migration Act of 2013, and relevant rules to ensure justice for affected migrant communities locally.
• Enhancing the documentation process of mediation stages with proper guidance and adherence to rules and regulations.

Advocate Humayun Ahmed, Panel Lawyer of RMMRU and advisory committee member of GMCs, facilitated the training on Migration Mediation, Overseas Employment and Migration Act-2013, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Additionally, sessions were conducted by Marina Sultana, Director of Programme RMMRU, Ms. Rabeya Nasrin, Project Coordinator, and Ms. Nazma Akhter, Field Coordinator of RMMRU.  Major sessions of these training included defining migration and migrants, Migration Act 2013, RMMRU’s migration mediation process, steps involved in mediation and documentation of mediation process, roles and responsibilities of GMCs, etc. The training employed methodologies such as group work presentations, role plays, and experience sharing to highlight mediation's importance, challenges, and mitigation strategies through GMCs. As a result of the training, GMC members and youth volunteer groups gained confidence in mediation and providing services at the local level.

Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) organised a 4 days-long annual consortium meeting at DuSai Resort & Spa, Sreemangal, Sylhet, Bangladesh, from 5-8 March 2024. The meeting focused on the project named Successful Intervention Pathways for Migration as Adaptation (SUCCESS). All project partners from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and the UK participated in the meeting. They discussed the project's future objectives and how it would be implemented. The research methodology of the project was designed, and they identified 3 key concepts: adaptive capacity, well-being, and precarity. Each concept has several domains and indicators.

Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) organised a 4 days-long workshop on methods and methodology at DuSai Resort & Spa from 1-4 March 2024. The workshop focused on qualitative research methods. The workshop was conducted by Nitya Rao (University of East Anglia, UK), Jelle Wouters (Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan), Chandni Sign (IIHS, India), Tasneem Siddiqui (University of Dhaka). Ethnography, life history, diaries, and photo-voice methods were discussed in the workshop. The participants also shared their knowledge of these methods. A total of 17 participants from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and the UK attended the workshop.

RMMRU, in collaboration with BMET, organised the 6th batch of training for recruiting agencies aimed at strengthening their capabilities. The training, titled “Training on Recruiting Agencies for Ensuring Ethical Recruitment,” took place on 28 & 29 February 2024 at the BMET Conference Room in Dhaka from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm with the support of Helvetas Bangladesh and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

BMET and RMMRU jointly conducted these training sessions following the schedule by MoEOWE, divided into 12 sessions over 2 days. This training was successfully conducted with the active participation of 84 agencies holding key positions such as Proprietors, Managing Directors, and Managing Partners.

The training was graced by the valuable presence of Mr. Shafiqur Rahaman Chowdhury MP, Hon’ble State Minister of MoEOWE, as the Chief Guest. Mr. Ali Haider Chowdhury, Secretary General of BAIRA, and Dr. Tasneem Siddiqui, Founding Chair of RMMRU, were present as Special Guests. The programme was Chaired by Mr. Md. Saleh Ahmad Mozaffar, Director General (Grade -1) of BMET.

In the training, Chief Guest stated that "Sending workers abroad through recruiting agencies should be guided by social responsibility and humanitarian aspects. We must ensure a proper monitoring system to prevent harassment of our workers and prioritise sending skilled migrant workers. He also stated that ethical recruitment practices are crucial to safeguard our country's reputation. So all actions must be aligned with the law and regulations to protect our workers abroad."

In the training, key sessions were led by distinguished officials such as Deputy Secretary MoEWOE, ADGs and Directors, and Senior Officials from BMET. The two-day sessions were on laws, rules, regulations, and policies for ensuring fairness in the recruitment process and Migration Act -2013, Overseas Employment and Migration Rules 2019, Overseas Employment Migration Management Rules 2017, Recruiting Agency Classification Rule 2020, Housekeeping Related Rules 2017, etc. Besides Administrative Matters in Recruitment Management, Ethical Recruitment Practices, Challenges, and Mitigation Strategies in Recruitment Management.

Marina Sultana, Director of the Program of RMMRU, delivered the welcome speech, and Mrs. Zohora Monsur, Deputy Director of BMET, effectively coordinated and moderated the training. RMMRU and BMET evaluated the agencies using pre-test and post-test questionnaires. At the end of the programme, the Chief Guest provided certificates to the participants for successfully completing the two-day training in the presence of invited guests. 

The members of the Obhijojon Odhikar Committees mentioned that some areas of Satkhira are too climate-vulnerable and they are forced to migrate due to water logging or unavailability of employment depending on Sundarbans. They further added child marriage is persuasive and, in some instances, girls often migrate to India due to poverty.

The programme was supported by the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and managed by International Organization for Migration (IOM).

RMMRU organised two batches of capacity-building training for Grievance Management Committees (GMCs) on 19 and 20 February 2024 at CHRD, BURO Bangladesh, Tangail. The objective of this training was to enhance the competencies of GMC members in migration mediation and access to legal service mechanisms at the grassroots level. 35 GMC members, youth volunteer group members, and the Union Porishod Chairman attended each training session. This training is organised with the support of the Justice at the Door Step Project, supported by the Asia Foundation under PERI.

Key objectives of the training included:

• Enhancing knowledge of GMCs in the Migration sector, improving the skills, and promoting the capacity and credibility of GMCs in migration mediation.
• Improving GMC members' knowledge about access to justice mechanisms, the Migration Act of 2013, and relevant rules to ensure justice for affected migrant communities locally.
• Enhancing the documentation process of mediation stages with proper guidance and adherence to rules and regulations.

Major sessions of these training included defining migration and migrants, the Migration Act 2013, RMMRU’s migration mediation process, steps involved in mediation and documentation of the mediation process, roles and responsibilities of GMCs, etc. The training employed various methodologies, such as group work presentations, role plays, and experience sharing, to highlight mediation's importance, challenges, and mitigation strategies through GMCs. As a result of the training, GMC members and youth volunteer groups gained confidence in mediation and providing services at the local level.

The project coordination meeting was held on 05-06 February 2024 at RMMRU head office. The meeting was used to provide updates on the project's progress and outcomes both overall and on the local level. Areas for future work were identified, and each welfare center presented a progress update. The counselors of the four welfare centers joined the meeting. These two-day meetings were very interactive as the moderators ensured that knowledge was not only disseminated but accurately perceived and understood by the participants. In order to ensure this, trainers engaged participants in discussions through group work and kept the forum open for feedback, queries, and suggestions.

Meeting Objectives

The objectives of this meeting were as follows:

• Sharing and cross-learning of center-wise progress updates;
• Discuss volunteers’ engagement, field experience, and implementation strategy;
• Project planning and coordination with key stakeholders.

Marina Sultana Moderated these two days' meetings. She welcomed the team (counselors of four welfare centers) to join the meeting on short notice. She also thanks the Executive Director of RMMRU, the RAISE project PD, and the IOM Senior Program Associate for joining the meeting.

Dr. C R Abrar, Executive Director of RMMRU, joined the inauguration part of the meeting. He said RMMRU is the pioneer organization in the arena of labour migration. We have been working on many research projects. As a part of the RAISE project, I would like to have the opportunity to work collaboratively with WEWB and IOM.  

Mr. Sourendra Nath Saha, PD of the RAISE project, joined the meeting and appreciated the team. He also added the project is not only about achieving the target. We have to concentrate on the needs of migrants carefully and also work on ensuring services for them.  After the end of the inauguration session, counselors shared the center-wise progress update from July 2023 onward and challenges considering operational, administrative, and finance.