DHAKA: Jordan has become a top destination for skilled garment workers from Bangladesh, officials in Dhaka say, as hundreds of Bangladeshi women find employment in the kingdom’s clothing sector every week.
Bangladesh started exporting skilled garment workers to Jordan in 2010 through a government agreement. Jordan’s garment industry has expanded rapidly in the past few years, and two thirds of Bangladeshi female workers in the kingdom now find employment at its clothing factories.
In other Middle Eastern countries, Bangladeshi women work mostly as domestic helpers.
According to data from the Bangladeshi Embassy in Amman, the Jordanian garment sector currently employs 40,000 Bangladeshi women.
“Every week we recruit around 500 female migrants for Jordan’s garment sector,” Mohammad Abdus Sobhan, company secretary of the state-run Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services, told Arab News. “It’s a very good opportunity for Bangladeshi female migrants to earn more as a skilled workforce with much more dignity.”
“All they need to have is some working experience in the local garment factories,” he said, adding that average monthly salary of Bangladeshi garment workers in Jordan is between $260 and $360 and that all of them initially receive two-year contracts.
The demand for Bangladeshi labor has been on the rise since the lifting of coronavirus restrictions, Sobhan said. In 2020, the kingdom accepted only about 3,700 garment workers from Bangladesh, but this year up to Sept. 30 more than 12,300 had already left for the Middle Eastern country.
Jordanian employers bear all the costs of processing working permits, travel, accommodation and healthcare.
Bangladesh Nari Sromik Kendro (BNSK), a rights organization for migrant workers, has been conducting awareness campaigns in the country’s rural areas about work opportunities abroad. It has found that workers are interested in joining Jordanian garment factories due to their employment model.
“Our female migrants are very interested in taking the opportunity since it’s an employer pay model, where the employer bears all costs to have the migrants’ services,” BNSK executive director Sumaiya Islam said.
Workers themselves say higher incomes are also a factor.
“My elder sister joined a garment factory in Jordan three years ago. The working environment and salary structure is much better than in Bangladesh,” said Masuma Begum, a 33-year-old single mother of two who is scheduled to fly to Jordan next month. “So, I also decided to join my sister.”
Kulsum Akter, 27, another garment worker who is preparing to work in Jordan, said the job will help her to provide for her whole five-member family.
“The job in Jordan will double my income,” she said. “Now I will provide better education for my seven-year-old son.”
BRAC, the largest development organization in Bangladesh, encourages the authorities to do more to tap into the Jordanian market
“It’s a very good opportunity for our female migrants since they earn more without any incidents of abuse,” BRAC’s head of migration program Shariful Hasan said.
“We need to make the people aware at the grassroots level, so that the intended migrants can make an informed decision about their opportunities in the overseas market.”
Dhaka’s ambassador to Amman, Nahida Sobhan, said the embassy is regularly in touch with Jordanian authorities, the Jordan Chamber of Commerce, the Jordan Garments, Accessories and Textiles Exporters Association, and individual factory owners to facilitate the employment of Bangladeshi workers.
“We are maintaining regular contact with Jordan’s Ministry of Labor and other government agencies to bring more Bangladeshi workers,” she said. “We have regular interaction with the business community.”
Jordan’s garment sector is top destination for Bangladeshi women workers
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Jordan’s garment sector is top destination for Bangladeshi women workers
Shooter kills 9 at Canadian school and residence
- The shooter was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound
- A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries
TORONTO: A shooter killed nine people and wounded dozens more at a secondary school and a residence in a remote part of western Canada on Tuesday, authorities said, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country’s history.
The suspect, described by police in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair,” was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
The attack occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, a picturesque mountain valley town in the foothills of the Rockies.
A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “devastated” by the “horrific acts of violence” and announced he was suspending plans to travel to the Munich Security Conference on Wednesday, where he had been set to hold talks with allies on transatlantic defense readiness.
Police said an alert was issued about an active shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon.
As police searched the school, they found six people shot dead. A seventh person with a gunshot wound died en route to hospital.
Separately, police found two more bodies at a residence in the town.
The residence is “believed to be connected to the incident,” police said.
At the school, “an individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self?inflicted injury,” police said.
Police have not yet released any information about the age of the shooter or the victims.
“We are devastated by the loss of life and the profound impact this tragedy has had on families, students, staff, and our entire town,” the municipality of Tumbler Ridge said in a statement.
Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told public broadcaster CBC that he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.
He said that initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos about the carnage.
“It set in what was happening,” Quist said.
He said he stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.
Trent Ernst, a local journalist and a former substitute teacher at Tumbler Ridge, expressed shock over the shooting at the school, where one of his children has just graduated.
He noted that school shootings have been a rarity occurring every few years in Canada compared with the United States, where they are far more frequent.
“I used to kind of go: ‘Look at Canada, look at who we are.’ But then that one school shooting every 2.5 years happens in your town and things... just go off the rails,” he told AFP.
‘Heartbreak’
While mass shootings are extremely rare in Canada, last April, a vehicle attack that targeted a Filipino cultural festival in Vancouver killed 11 people.
British Columbia Premier David Eby called the latest violence “unimaginable.”
Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, said it was “one of the worst mass shootings in our province’s and country’s history.”
The Canadian Olympic Committee, whose athletes are competing in the 2026 Winter Games in Italy, said Wednesday it was “heartbroken by the news of the horrific school shooting.”
Ken Floyd, commander of the police’s northern district, said: “This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community, and we are grateful for the cooperation shown as officers continue their work to advance the investigation.”
Floyd told reporters the shooter was the same suspect police described as “female” in a prior emergency alert to community members, but declined to provide any details on the suspect’s identity.
The police said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.
Tumbler Ridge, a quiet town with roughly 2,400 residents, is more than 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) north of Vancouver, British Columbia’s largest city.
“There are no words sufficient for the heartbreak our community is experiencing tonight,” the municipality said.
