On December 18, the global community acknowledges and celebrates the contributions of millions of migrants worldwide. Through their hard work and under challenging circumstances, migrant workers of Bangladesh not only bring a big difference to their own households, but also to the economies and societies of their countries of origin and destination. There is also a growing recognition of the migrant workers' contribution to the attainment of sustainable development goals.

Bangladeshi migrant workers require a range of services and support at both the origin and destination ends. Successive governments have framed policies and laws and established institutional frameworks to cater to the multifaceted needs of our migrant workers. However, despite the progress made over the last few decades, a lot more still needs to be done. For one, there is a major gap in rendering support to these workers in the destination countries. The capacity of extending such support is largely conditioned by policies in the destination countries concerned. Resource mobilisation for the offices of labour attached to those countries is another major constraint.

Lack of information about availability of work in destination countries and securing work visas are perhaps the most daunting issues an aspiring migrant worker faces in Bangladesh...

Among the South Asian countries, migrant workers from Bangladesh have to bear the highest migration cost. There is a huge gap between the state-set cost of migration and the amount that workers actually have to pay an agent for facilitating their migration...

Bangladeshi workers dominate the low-skilled category in most labour markets in the Gulf as well as Southeast Asian countries. Lack of skills and education not only subjects them to low pay, but it also makes them vulnerable to ill treatment and abuse...

There is a major gap in migrant workers' access to justice, both in countries of origin and destination... The workers' inability to understand the local language and to secure services of interpreters and legal counsels, as well as non-availability of legal aid support, deprive them of their right to access justice...