By Tuhin Sarwar | 14/12/2025 ।
How structural abuse, recruitment fraud and policy failures push thousands into a cycle of trauma
The night she escaped was colder than usual in Riyadh. Wrapped in an oversized abaya she had stolen from the kitchen, 23-year-old Bangladeshi domestic worker “Rima” slipped across the tiled backyard of her employer’s villa—barefoot, disoriented, and terrified. Her hands, raw from scraping the concrete boundary wall, trembled as she dropped down on the other side. She had been assaulted again, for the third time in a month, by her employer’s son. This time she was certain the violence would escalate beyond survival.
Hours later, a Pakistani driver pulled over on a highway and dialed the police. By then, her employers had already reported her as “absconding”—a label that, under Saudi Arabia’s Kafala sponsorship regime, effectively turned her into a criminal. When authorities took her into custody, she learned what thousands of other Bangladeshi women had discovered: in the absence of protection mechanisms, escape was not freedom. It was the beginning of another battle.
Her experience, documented by a Bangladeshi NGO upon her repatriation, mirrors a larger, systemic crisis that has unfolded between 2020 and 2025.
A Pattern Repeated Across Thousands of Lives
From 2020 to 2025, international organisations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Bangladesh Migrant Rights Network (BMRN), and independent media investigations have documented a remarkably consistent pattern.
Women—mostly between 18 and 35—are recruited from rural areas such as Narsingdi, Bogura, Sirajganj, Jamalpur, and Sunamganj. They are promised safe jobs, defined working hours, and monthly salaries equivalent to USD 250–300. But upon arrival in Saudi Arabia, many find a different reality.
Testimonies collected from 15 returnees in Dhaka and 32 additional cases documented by NGOs reveal that:
• Passports are routinely confiscated upon arrival.
• Workers often serve multiple households despite having a single-employer contract.
• Many face 16–20 hours of work per day with no rest days.
• Cases of beatings, food deprivation, and verbal degradation are widespread.
• Severe instances include sexual assault by employers or male relatives.
Between 2020 and 2024, nearly 80 percent of women who sought refuge at the Bangladesh Embassy safe house in Riyadh reported at least one form of abuse. Around 15 percent disclosed sexual violence—although rights groups insist the true figure is much higher due to stigma and fear of retaliation.
The Scale of Migration—and the Invisible Crisis Behind It
Saudi Arabia has been the largest destination for Bangladeshi migrant workers for more than a decade. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET):
• Over 1.2 million Bangladeshis migrated to Saudi Arabia in the last ten years.
• At least 400,000 were women employed as domestic workers.
Yet formal statistics capture only a fraction of the abuses these workers endure behind the walls of private households.
ILO research underscores that domestic workers globally are among the least protected categories of labour, particularly under employer-tied visa systems. In Saudi Arabia, despite partial reforms, the Kafala system continues to grant employers extensive control over workers’ legal status, mobility, and residency. This imbalance—structural and deeply entrenched—creates an environment with minimal deterrence against abuse.
Trafficking-Like Recruitment: The Gateway to Exploitation
Interviews with survivors reveal an exploitative recruitment pipeline. The process typically begins in rural Bangladesh, where dalals—informal brokers—approach families with promises of immediate overseas placement.
The pattern follows a now familiar chain:
Recruiters offer “free visas,” a term appealing in Bangladesh but legally irrelevant in Saudi Arabia.
Women receive only a few days of basic training, often inadequate for complex household roles abroad.
Upon landing, employers confiscate their passports—an illegal yet widespread practice highlighted repeatedly by Amnesty International.
Workers are kept isolated, often unable to contact family or embassy officials.
Recruiters profit at every step. Despite government regulations, oversight remains weak, allowing unlicensed operators to thrive.
Behind Closed Doors: Violence, Fear, and Silence
Survivor accounts collected between 2020 and 2025 describe a spectrum of abuse. Women recount being slapped, beaten with cables, or forced to sleep in storerooms or kitchens. Food is sometimes withheld as punishment. In the most severe cases, women allege sexual violence by employers, their sons, or extended relatives.
Many workers remain silent due to fear. Under the pre-2023 Kafala rules, leaving the employer’s home without permission—regardless of the reason—constituted “absconding,” a punishable offence. Women attempting to report abuse were often told by police to return to their employer’s house, reinforcing a cycle of coercion.
Data from the Migrant Rights Observatory indicates that from 2020 to 2024, at least 2,700 women sought refuge or repatriation assistance from the Bangladesh Embassy in Riyadh. Many others never reached the embassy at all.
Pandemic Lockdowns: A Surge in Hidden Violence
The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the crisis. Lockdowns confined workers indoors for months, limiting escape opportunities and increasing their dependence on employers.
NGOs report spikes in:
• Physical assault
• Emotional degradation
• Psychological trauma
• Wage theft
A 2023 BRAC Migration Programme study found 43 percent of returnee women exhibited moderate to severe trauma indicators, including PTSD symptoms, anxiety disorders, and persistent sleep disruptions.
A Structural Problem, Not a Series of Isolated Cases
The drivers behind the abuse are systemic—rooted in socio-economic pressures, gendered labour hierarchies, and structural gaps in migration governance.
Saudi Arabia’s domestic labour market relies heavily on migrant women to maintain private households. Bangladeshi women are often perceived by employers as more “manageable,” increasing demand and fuelling aggressive recruitment practices. This dependency intersects with:
• Fragmented migration governance in Bangladesh
• Weak oversight of recruitment agencies
• Lack of enforceable bilateral safeguards
• Limited access to legal support abroad
On the Saudi side, domestic workers remain excluded from many reforms introduced in 2021 that allowed other migrant workers to change employers without permission. This exclusion perpetuates a dependency model where reporting abuse can result in punishment rather than protection.
Bangladesh’s Governance Gaps
Despite policy frameworks, enforcement failures persist. Three key institutions—the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare, BMET, and the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board—operate without a unified database of abuse cases. As a result:
• There is no central record of returnee testimonies.
• Safe houses lack capacity and trauma support services.
• Data needed to negotiate stronger protections remains scattered.
The absence of coordinated oversight enables traffickers and unlicensed agencies to operate with impunity.
Return and Reintegration: The Silent Second Trauma
Beyond the physical and psychological wounds, returnees face a harsh social reality.
Women report:
• Community stigma
• Marital breakdown
• Financial ruin after unpaid or stolen wages
• Lack of long-term rehabilitation
• Vulnerability to re-trafficking due to poverty
Advocacy groups call this “double victimisation”: exploited abroad, and socially abandoned upon return.
Online Recruitment: The New Frontier of Trafficking
Between 2020 and 2024, trafficking patterns shifted significantly. Recruiters increasingly used Facebook pages, WhatsApp groups, and TikTok videos to advertise fraudulent domestic worker jobs in the Gulf.
The UNODC’s 2024 report noted a 37 percent rise in online-enabled labour trafficking since the pandemic—Bangladesh being one of the most impacted sending countries.
Fake employer profiles, manipulated salary screenshots, and fabricated accommodation photos are now standard tools in the trafficking ecosystem.
Remittances, Diplomacy, and the Policy Dilemma
Remittances from migrant workers contribute over USD 21 billion annually to Bangladesh’s economy. Female workers form a substantial segment of this flow. Maintaining robust labour migration to Saudi Arabia remains a strategic economic priority for Dhaka.
This creates a diplomatic tension:
• Protect workers without jeopardising recruitment pipelines.
• Demand reform without straining bilateral ties.
Experts argue that this tension is unnecessary. Countries that dismantled or restructured Kafala systems saw measurable declines in abuse and increased labour stability. Better protections mean fewer crises, fewer deaths, and more reliable remittances.
The Unseen Reality Behind Millions of Closed Doors
Despite incremental policy shifts, the humanitarian cost continues to rise. Each week, survivors arrive at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport—some limping, some silent from trauma, some pregnant due to assault.
Many require months of healing. Others never fully recover.
The systemic nature of the abuse means that individual rescue operations cannot address the root causes. Effective long-term solutions require:
• Stronger bilateral enforcement mechanisms
• Comprehensive pre-departure training
• Regulated recruitment pathways
• Trauma-informed embassy support
• Regular monitoring of employers
• Inclusion of domestic workers in Saudi labour reforms
Without these, the cycle will persist.
A Crisis That Demands Recognition and Reform
The story of Bangladeshi domestic workers in Saudi Arabia is not simply a collection of personal tragedies. It is a structural crisis involving migration governance, economic pressure, gender inequality, and unregulated labour demand.
Every day, behind the walls of private homes in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam, this story continues—unseen and unrecorded.
For women like Rima, returning home alive is only the first chapter. Healing requires more than rescue; it requires justice, dignity, and accountability across borders.
Their testimonies remind us of an unforgiving truth: migrant domestic workers are not invisible labour units. They are human beings whose rights must be protected—by the states that send them, the states that receive them, and the global systems that profit from their work.
References (Clickable & Verified)
BMET Official Migration Data: https://www.bmet.gov.bd/
UN Women Migration Reports: https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/
Human Rights Watch Reports on Domestic Workers: https://www.hrw.org/
International Labour Organization (ILO): https://www.ilo.org/
UNODC Trafficking Analysis: https://www.unodc.org/
Amnesty International Migrant Worker Reports: https://www.amnesty.org/
Migrant-Rights.org Case Documentation: https://www.migrant-rights.org/
Wage Earners’ Welfare Board – Bangladesh: https://wewb.gov.bd/
Domestic Workers Convention C189: https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/
