SINGAPORE —
Bapari Jakir’s employers wanted to see him off the job, but the welder was
heavily in debt and didn’t want to go back to Bangladesh. So, he says, they
encouraged him to leave — by hiring a company whose thugs held him captive in a
room, holding a knife to his throat.
Singapore needs
foreign workers, but it doesn’t want them to overstay their welcome, and firms
get fined when they do. That has created a market for “repatriation companies,”
which deny allegations from activists and the United States that they use
illegal tactics to expel foreign workers.
