SINGAPORE: Jaynal MD had high hopes about coming to Singapore.
A job here meant he would earn triple the 28,000 Bangladeshi taka (US$240) he made a month in Bangladesh.
Though sad to leave his two young children behind, he thought it was worth it to give them a better life.
But what the 25-year-old did not know was that he would be stuck in limbo months down the road, with no job and at times, no roof over his head.
WHAT HAPPENED
Back in his village in the Narayanganj district in Bangladesh, Mr Jaynal drove an auto-rickshaw, also known as a tuktuk, for a living. The money he makes from this – a job he secured having only studied until Primary 4 – goes to provide for his family of seven.
In February this year, a friend of his father told him about an agent who helped three of his fellow village men secure jobs at a dairy farm in Singapore.
Mr Jaynal was told the same company, DairyFolks Fresh Milk Suppliers, was looking for another worker. He would be paid S$1,000 a month (US$740).
“I was very hopeful and happy … that I was going to get such an increase in my salary,” Mr Jaynal told CNA through a Bengali translator. His family was equally enthusiastic.
Convinced to take up the offer, Mr Jaynal began communicating with the agent, who was in Singapore, over WhatsApp.
The agent did not tell him much about the job; only that he would be working on a farm. The agent also gave him a digital copy of an in-principal approval letter, which is needed to bring migrant workers into the country.
The agent said “everything would be solved and fixed” after he arrived in Singapore, Mr Jaynal recounted.
He was also told he had to pay 800,000 Bangladeshi taka – about S$9,200 – to secure the job. Of this, he had to pay the equivalent of almost S$7,000 before he came to Singapore.
In the month leading up to his arrival, he sold his rickshaw to buy a flight ticket. He also took out bank loans to get the cash he needed, which he handed over to the agent’s brother in Bangladesh.