Dhaka, June 11: More than 5,000 Bangladeshis are in jails in 60 countries, mostly charged with illegal entry, officials said today. An official in the Dhaka office of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) said of the total 200 were convicts and the rest were detained for illegal entry or staying without valid documents.
Bangladeshi officials said steps were underway to bring them home, but the process was complex and time-consuming.
"It is a difficult process as many of them do not have any valid papers with them," said Daliluddin Mondal, secretary in the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment, adding some do not want to return home.
The IOM, a United Nations body, said in its global report yesterday that more than 200,000 people travel annually to the Middle East from Bangladesh seeking employment. Three percent of them were women.
Cash-strapped Bangladesh encourages its skilled, semi- skilled and unskilled workers to seek employment abroad legally and with valid papers, ministry officials said.
About 1.7 million Bangladeshis work in the Gulf, mostly in Saudi Arabia, while another half million are spread across the world sending back hundreds of millions of dollars a year in remittances for their families.

Bureau Report