IOM and the UN's Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) are holding on
27 May a high-level policy dialogue in the Bangladesh capital,
Dhaka, to examine the impact of the global financial crisis on
Bangladeshi female migrant workers.

This one-day event will bring together key representatives from
the government, national parliament, international organizations,
migrant associations, the media as well as civil society
representatives with expertise on women's migration and rights.

With large scale recession-induced job cuts now affecting many
Asian and Middle East countries, experts believe female migrant
workers are now even more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

"Since migrant women tend to work in the informal, low-skilled
and unregulated sectors of the economy, they tend to be more
vulnerable to exploitation than men," says Rabab Fatima, IOM's
Regional Representative in Bangladesh. "The aim of this dialogue is
to find practical solutions to address the many challenges that
Bangladeshi female migrant workers continue to face abroad."

Official figures show that more than 20,000 Bangladeshi women,
representing 22 per cent of all overseas Bangladeshi workers,
travelled abroad in search of employment in 2007.

However, this figure does not reflect the overall number of
undocumented female migrants working in South Asia and the Middle
East, which is believed to be much higher.

In the Middle East, female migrants from Bangladesh continue to
occupy a major share in the domestic service sector

Bangladesh is one of the highest labour sending countries and is
among the top ten remittance receiving countries in the world.

In 2008, an estimated 870,000 overseas Bangladeshis sent home
more than USD 9 billion.

This event, part of a series of IOM policy dialogues, aims to
generate policy and practical measures by the government, civil
society and private sector in response to the current economic
downturn.

For more information please contact:

Asif Munier

IOM Dhaka

Tel. +880.1.714.114.659

E-mail: "mailto:amunier@iom.int">amunier@iom.int 

or

Tanya Huq Shahriar

Tel. +880.1.713.01.1705

E-mail: "mailto:tshahriar@iom.int">tshahriar@iom.int