ALTHOUGH this issue has not been discussed much, current political hostility may affect migration and its long- as well as short-term economics more than thought of now. The protests and subsequent jailing of protesting migrants in the United Arab Emirates have largely been forgotten now. The opposition鈥檚 call to boycott remittances through regular banking channels is much more in the news, but a decline or any other negative impact on workers will affect the so called 鈥榥ational economy鈥� more seriously than expected.
The migrant protests and subsequent events have left the main pages and headlines sometime back, but the echoes may be louder than expected. The political gains, if any, can be measured later, but the shadow of lower remittance will have a baneful effect on the rural middle class economy.
These migrant workers are not in transaction with any state agencies nor dependent on the government to provide their employment unlike the protesters. However, their action may have put the livelihood of many at stake, not just now but in future also in these hiring countries. Its economic impact may well be higher than that of torching a part of the metro rail.
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Migration employment map and Middle East
IN PROPORTION to the overall population, Bangladesh may well be the highest migrant-sending country in the world. Statistics on working migrants and those who are permanent migrants together come to a high number, but official statistics are weak on this. The statistics also conveniently ignore working migrants to India and Pakistan 鈥� both are irregular/illegal; hence, the government denies their existence.
Apart from that, while the general number quoted on migrants to Pakistan 鈥� around 2鈥�3 million 鈥� has no political impact, that is not the case with migrants to India, which is a highly politically volatile issue for both the countries, particularly India. Depending on who is doing which politics, Indian numbers vary from five million to 20 million. Such a high number, of course, is used by the Bharatiya Janata Party government to push various laws and drum up populist hostility which is very convenient for the kind of 鈥榟ate鈥� politics that is very popular in South Asia.
It is generally held that there are about 25 million legal and illegal migrants all over the world, including India, from Bangladesh and the biggest intake of Bangladesh working migrants is in the Middle East. While 80 per cent of the Middle East migrants go to Saudi Arabia, the rest go to the Arab zone, particularly the Emirates, which includes several kingdoms. And it is in one of them that Bangladeshis took to the streets in protests of the Dhaka situation. While this may seem as natural as anti-government protests were held in several places where Bangladeshis live as a diaspora, any sort of political activities are not just frowned upon but banned in the United Arab Emirates.
Dhaka鈥檚 media may have missed the point that they immediately sentenced two of the protesters to prison for life, one to 11 years and the rest 50+ to 10 years. It is rumoured though not confirmed that issuing work permit visas to Bangladeshis has been suspended, at least for now.
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What went wrong?
MOST of the working migrants are rarely aware of the laws of the land they work in; and living in isolation means that they have no access to such information either. In many cases, they reach such places with more than some degree of irregularity at the home base. So, they are of the opinion that breaking laws are part of the system everywhere as in Bangladesh. Hence, they are often unaware of the consequences.
The other matter is that they were manipulated by political and other forces to go out and protest and they fell for that. It is also possible that those who may be sharing such ideas were themselves unaware of such legal risks. The situation at the end of the day is, therefore, this 鈥� no matter who did whatever and how.
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The crisis
THE rural economy is largely dependent on migration money for economic development and even survival. So, any sanction against future intake can have unprecedented consequences. It will not only be economic but socio-political as well. Till date, the Bangladesh government has made no announcement on this issue and so, it is possible that no immediate sanction has arrived but the risk is there.
The first priority would, therefore, be to assure that such political action will not happen again and follow this up with counselling for the migrants everywhere on local laws. It is important to recognise that this is a livelihood issue for almost a third of the national labour force and a disaster for them will simply overwhelm Bangladesh.
It is best for all to stay away playing politics with this issue. And migrants should also be counselled about safe behaviour while living and working abroad in low-skilled jobs which are far away from what civil service cadres and other middle class members do and the rest of the graduates hope and aspire for.
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Afsan Chowdhury is a researcher and journalist.