The recent incidents shed light on the desperation of the migrant labours in the South Asian countries that worsen during disasters like the present pandemic.
The South Asian countries have achieved significant success in containing the spread of COVID-19 virus by imposing preventive measures like social distancing and country-wide lockdown timely. Nevertheless, the disaster risk management measures by them, namely — India, Nepal and Bangladesh are facing some criticism because of the inconvenience experienced by the migrant workers due to the country-wide sudden lockdown.
In India, hundreds and thousands of migrant workers from major metros and big cities were seen scaling long distance on foot to reach their home in far-flung places after the lockdown was imposed on 25 March. They took the hazardous journey of hundreds of miles after all modes of transport was suspended due to the lockdown. Similarly, in Bangladesh thousands of migrants, mostly working in the readymade garments’ (RMG) factories, came to Dhaka from across the country walking to resume their work in early April. The migrant workers had to take the difficult journey because of lack of clarity among the factory owners about the opening of the RMG sector factories, following the extension of the lockdown by the government. In Bangladesh lockdown was declared on 26 March and was extended to 25 April later. The factory owners were confused about the status of the RMG sector whether to open it or not, this led to the sufferings of the factory workers. In Nepal, thousands of migrants working in India were denied entry to their own country and remained stranded at the international border because of sealing of the border by Nepal in an attempt to prevent the entry of infected person across the border. These incidents raise the need for the South Asian countries to adopt a migrant worker inclusive disaster risk management policy.
India, Nepal and Bangladesh, have implemented disaster risk management policies independently, however, the above incidences highlight the vulnerabilities of migrant labours, particularly internal and across the border in South Asia, in a disaster situation like the present pandemic. Today, doubts are expressed about the credibility of these nations in articulating a holistic disaster risk management policy. The popular perception has been that South Asian countries could not anticipate the possible challenges migrant workers might encounter following the preventive responses measures for COVID-19 virus. Such flaws might add new challenges in the hours of need and hamper to attain the actual goals. A holistic understanding of all the possible challenges is necessary to avoid repetition of similar situation in future.
Migrant workers are silent contributors to the economy; unfortunately, their role is not recognised. India has around 139 million internal migrants who forms a significant portion of the workforce in sectors like construction, hospitality, manufacturing, particularly in small scale industries. Their contribution has helped these sectors to fulfil demands of the domestic and export markets and earn revenues for the country’s trillion-dollar economy. In Bangladesh, migrant workers have been the backbone of the booming readymade garment industry that comprises of 80 per cent of the country’s export earnings. The readymade garment employs around four million workers of the majority are migrants coming from different parts of Bangladesh. Similarly, remittances sent by the Nepali migrants working in India is helping the country’s economy.
Although these countries have formulated laws for the internal migrant labours like India has Inter-state Workmen Act 1979; however, the laws do not ensure welfare of the migrants, basically involved in the informal sector. Largely, migrants are employed in the informal sector and lack privileges, otherwise available to the workers in the formal sector. Migrant workers are exposed to uncertainties like employment, health, housing, etc.
Notably, the plight of the migrants from Nepal working in India are not different from the internal migrants. Since people can move freely across the border between India and Nepal, migrants working is undocumented and are employed in the informal sector, thus, they lack the privileges and protection that of the foreigners employed in the formal sector.
The recent incidents shed light on the desperation of the migrant labours in the South Asian countries that worsen during disasters like the present pandemic. The migrants have to undertake difficult walk either on their way to home or to resume work because it was an issue of their survival. There are doubts whether these walks have helped them to attain the kind of safety they’d actually desired. The countrywide protest by the garment workers in Bangladesh demanding their pending salaries focuses on the struggles of migrant worker — and it is likely to deepen in the coming times.
The garment factories in Bangladesh are incurring losses as orders are cancelled by their buyers in the Europe and United States, major destination for the country’s RMG export, because these countries are experience economic slowdown due to the pandemic. Already, the garment industry is claimed $6 billion loss and it is likely to increase in future if the economy in the west does not recover and this enhances possibility of reduction in the number of the labour force in the RMG. The pandemic has adversely impacted the economy of the entire South Asia. The World Bank has estimated the South Asian economy will grow around 1.8 percent this year, which will be lowest in the last four decades. Earlier, South Asian economy was growing nearly at six percent annually. The migrant workers are likely to face major brunt of the disruption of the economy since large scale job loss is speculated in areas like construction, manufacturing, food and beverage industry, tourism — where they mostly work.
According to the International Labour Organisation, more than 25 million jobs are likely to be lost in this year alone due to the impact of the pandemic. The countries need to have a humane approach and require to find means to financially support such workers. Since many of the migrants might now not want to move back again, it would be prudent to find them gainful employment across the regions from where they migrate. India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship neighbourhood first policy should take into account this aspect also.
A comprehensive migrant worker-friendly disaster risk management policy will help in reducing the sufferings of the migrant workers during a disaster. A migrant worker-friendly response should involve three phases — planning before the event, mitigation during the event and relief and rehabilitation after the event. Ideally, a successful disaster risk management policy should focus on helping the migrants in recouping the losses also. This approach will require the involvement of all the stakeholder — state and non-governmental organisations. A dialogue with all the stakeholders could bring in significant outcome in this regard. The countries might consider drafting of a standard operating process and it could be a guide in developing a timely response. Such an approach should not only be inculcated at the individual level by a country, but should consider adopting a regional policy also. Emphasis should be given on increasing interaction among the countries while implementing policies which might include border control so that safety and security in the migrant labours could be ensured on the occasion of extraordinary circumstances like the pandemic that has a global impact.
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Joyeeta Bhattacharjee (1975 2021) was Senior Fellow with ORF. She specialised in Indias neighbourhood policy the eastern arch: Bangladeshs domestic politics and foreign policy: border ...
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