By Marina Seyie Narendra
A migrant worker is a person who either migrates within their home state or country to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the region in which they work. In other words migrant workers is the movement of persons from their home state to another state for the purpose of employment.
Migrant workers are considered as one of the major forces of development in our country. They contribute to economic progress and development of both receiving and sending states. Young girls and women are singled out in families to be migrant workers because they don’t have a viable alternative role to fulfil in the local village. If they go to work in the urban centres as domestic workers they can send home money to provide help for their younger siblings. There are different types of migration such as counter-urbanisation, emigration, immigration, internal migration, international migration and rural-urban migration.
Domestic migrant workers have been estimated to be about 4.2 million. These workers range from full-time to part-time workers, temporary or permanent workers. They are typically employed for remuneration in cash or kind in any household through any agency or directly to do the household work but do not include any member of the family of an employer. Rural-urban migration may be reduced by interventions which increase cultivatable land, equalise land or income distribution or decrease fertility. On the other hand, migration appears to be stimulated by interventions which increase access to cities, commercialise agriculture, strengthen rural-urban integration, raise education and skill levels or increase rural inequalities. However, in labour migration it is possible to identify two types of migrants: highly skilled labour and unskilled low wage labour (including illegal or forced immigrants).
Why is migration necessary?
-Migration is important for the transfer of manpower and skills and provides the needed knowledge and innovation for global growth.
What are the cause of migrant workers?
-Unemployment opportunities
-Uneven developments
-Family debt
-Poverty
-Peer pressure
-Landholding system
-Fragmentations of land
-Large family size
-Natural calamities
What are the effects of labor migration in the community?
-Improved health and nutrition status
-Increased purchasing power
-diversified consumption capacity of family members
What are the benefits of migrant workers?
-Filling skills gaps: fulfiling existing contracts and taking on more work through new skills and talent.
-Knowledge sharing: increasing access to international knowledge and supporting the upskilling of co-workers.
-Expansion into new markets: strengthening contacts in international markets and local networks through new language skills and cultural awareness.
-Enrichment from different cultures: creating a more diverse workforce with varied experience and ways of working.
How can we improve migration of workers?
-Protect the human rights of all migrants.
-Reduce the costs of labour migration.
-Eliminate migrant exploitation including human trafficking.
-Address the plight of stranded migrants.
-Improve public perceptions of migrants.
-Integrate migration into the development agenda.
