The Global Research Forum on Diaspora Transnationalism [GRFDT],Migrant Forum in Asia[MFA] and Center for Research in North America [CISAN-UNAM] on the 2nd to 5th of November organized a joint International E-Conference on Migration, Diaspora, Sustainable Development: Perspectives, Policies, Opportunities and Challenges. The conference was organized in different parallel sessions under different themes of discussion. Parallel Session 6was held on the 4th day of the conference on November 5th 2020 divided into 5 separate sub sessions. Session 3 of parallel session 6 was held under the theme: Perspectives on Migration and Diaspora, the session was chaired by Rajneesh Gupta and coordinated by Dr Sadananda Sahoo. The session covered presentations from different parts of the world on varying perspectives on migration, diaspora and refugees with recommendations on how to improve research on migration demographic and policy formulation.
Migration and Demographic Security
Dr Evgenii Gamerman presented on the Migration Process and Demographic Security in the Russian Far East. He began his presentation by stating that the relationship between migration and security is by no means new but ambitious as well. The inclusion of migration threats in the list of security problems is considered to be politically incorrect. In Europe and North America, they are serious analytical work in the field of security studies devoted to the issues of migration in the context of international migration. Demographic security is focused on protection of the process of improvement of human life and the effectiveness of demographic policy and the effectiveness of demographic freedom.
“The Far-East has traditionally been a region of intense migration processes, currently the outflow of the population versus the framework of internal Russian migration prevails in the geographic structure of migration which form a negative migration balance.” Says Dr Gamerman
An important element of the post-Soviet process is immigration of the population from former Soviet countries. As a part of the study of dynamics of permanent migration attention is drawn to increasing the number of migrants from the former Soviet. He concluded his presentation by stating that the idea that international migrants are synonymous with crime is rather redundant considering that the number of crimes committed by international migrants are lower compared to migrants in the Far-East Russia which mostly from former soviet states.
Integrating Health Education in Refugee Camps
Dr Jessica Huang presented on Learning from Practitioners: Perspectives of Refugee Community Health Workers in Kukuma, Kenya on Enabling Innovation. She began her presentation by stating that health education is often seen as separate activity from other wok in the camps.
“There is need to learn from programs trying to integrate health education with other services such as food distribution and latrine building”: Dr Huang
She suggested that doing so will allow programs challenged by lack of resources and critical mass of trained actors to employ refugees and host community members as aides for the community health workers. Despite the cluster coordination system, stakeholders are left out of collaborations. Dr Huang concluded her presentation by pointing out that they are practitioners seeking support and incentives to increase sharing of information and working together. There is need to dive more into maternal and child health care as well as sanitation and hygiene when dealing with health care programs in refugee camps.
Defining Diaspora and Transnationalism
Dr Ramji Timalsina presented his paper on Transnational Perspective in the Theorization of the Nepali Diaspora and its literature. He began his presentation by stressing the fundamental point that transnationalism and diaspora are not the same, however, they do have an overlapping definition.
“There is no diaspora without border crossing, so, diaspora is a border crossing phenomena.” says Dr Timalsina
All transnationals cannot be diasporas and diaspora is a group of permanently settled people who have connection be it physical or emotional with their homeland. Dr Timalsina observed that Nepali transnational communities can be divided into three broad categories: diaspora, transnational mobiles and transnational outsiders. He further asserts that the Nepali diaspora can also be divided into three specific categories: established Nepali diaspora, Incipient Nepali diaspora and Dormant Nepali diaspora. These classifications define and describe the fluidity of Nepali migrant identity and the complexities of Nepali migration. Dr Timalsina concluded his presentation by stating that in the case of Nepali migration “you cannot talk about transnationalism without invoking Nepali diaspora”.
Effects of COVID-19 on Women Migrant Workers
Dr Nupur Pattanaik’s presentation was on Migrant Women Workers: Issues and Challenges in Times of the Pandemic. Her research explored the impacts of COVID-19 on women migrant workers. She stated how the dynamics of migration has changed over the years with women no longer migrating with their husbands but independently in search of economic opportunities.However,COVID-19 has dramatically altered societies and labour markets, leading to a lot of unprecedented challenges to migrant workers.
“During this pandemic the migrant female worker face a lot of challenges such as gender inequality, pay inequality and bondage labour.” Says Dr Pattanaik
Dr Pattanaik observed that due to COVID-19 there has been a rise in job insecurity and xenophobia particularly towards women domestic workers. She concluded her presentation by highlighting that due to the outbreak of COVID-19,mobility and travel restrictions are jeopardizing the income of migrant women, particularly domestic workers. The impact of the employment crisis under COVID-19 disproportionately affect less protected population like women.
Impact of Remittances on Development
Professor Dr Kazi Abdul Mannan presented his paper on Migration, Diaspora, Remittances and Sustainable Development Goals in Bangladesh. The paper focused on the key issue areas identified in Sustainable Development Goals targets that focus on migration and diasporas particularly remittances in Bangladesh. The situation of migrant workers is highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on economic growth and decent work, the issue of trafficking as well as migration status and disaggregation.
“Remittances have become a main source of external financing for developing countries”: Prof. Mannan
Remittances are a major source of income for lower income household. they are a major factor in poverty reduction in developing countries. Prof. Mannan observed that the success of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Bangladesh paved way to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Bangladesh’s development is also aligned to the diaspora and remittance system therefore it is important to give attention to the role of migration in development.
Prejudices Towards Migrants Stock Hate Crimes
Mr. Amlesh Kumar Sinha presented his paper on Hate Crimes and Perspectives of American Dream. He began his presentation by stating that equal opportunity and absence of bias based hate crime is seen as an American dream. America is viewed as a land of opportunity where a person despite their race, gender or ethnicity has an equal opportunity for success. However, in pragmatic terms race and gender does determine not only the education and the neighbourhood but the way people live. America has a weakness of grouping people in one without consideration of cultural difference. Asian Americans or rather Indian Americans to be specific come from diverse parts of the world with different cultures but they are grouped as one despite the difference between a person of Indian descent but South African and a person of Indian descent from the United Kingdom.
Sinha observed that prejudice is the reason for hate crimes.Americans have fear of losing their jobs to migrants and that has caused xenophobia towards Indian Americans. Prejudice stemming from September 11 terror attack has also put Sikh Muslims in the same bucket as terrorists because of their appearance.The prejudices that exist towards migrants in America makes it hard to achieve the American dream, nevertheless, Indians still move to America in search of that dream.
“The American dream is easy for certain people than for others”: Sinha
Sinha concluded his presentation by asserting that the claim of being the land of freedom and equal opportunity shows the hypocrisy and irony as ethnicity, race, religion and gender play and important role in achieving the American dream.
Re-Defining Decent Work in the Context of Migrant Workers
Is the work of Ukrainian Migrants in Poland Decent? Astudy on the Decent Work Concept in Migrants Experience and Institutional Context was the title of Olivia Chwat’s presentation. She began her presentation by defining what decent work entails according to the International Labour Organisation as“ protection of labour rights and promote safe and secure working environment for all workers including migrant workers, in particular women migrants and those in precarious employment”. Decent work sums up to aspirations of people in their working lives,it involves opportunities for work, security at work place, social protection for families, better prospects for personal development. Ms. Chwat observed that the data available does not focus much on decent work for all. She further observed that the International Labour Organization’s data uses more of quantitative approach but there is need to use qualitative approach as issues like language barrier can make it difficult to fill questionnaires and there is no development of rapport between the researcher and the interviewee.
“Trust can be built when using in-depth interviews than questionnaires when interviewing migrants on decent work.”says Chwat.
Chwat points out that the interviews for this study was done online due to the limitations posed by COVID-19 pandemic and she acknowledged that the data is not representative due to the scope of the research. In her research she found that most Ukrainians who migrate to Poland are qualified professionals but they do manual jobs such as in construction as it is difficult to find a job in their field of profession. In conclusion she pointed out that Poland does not have any official immigration policies, however, due to the impact and challenges of COVID-19 there is still need for migrants in the agricultural sector that explains why Poland still accepts migrants regardless of COVID-19.
The sessions were concluded with comments on the presentations by Rajneesh Gupta. It was observed that the presentations touched on diverse and fundamental issues on migrant workers, refugees, demographic security and decent work with varying perspectives from different parts of the world. The diversity of data presented made the presentations informative and relevant to modern day complexities of migration discourse.
Inomusa Ndlovu is a student of M.A. in Political Science at Lucknow University, India. She is a feminist, creative writer (focus on social activism) and her academic and professional interests are in Migration and International Relations. She can be reached on Twitter @InomusaCN