Syed Sajidur Rahman*
May 6, 2021
Human mobility is mainly triggered by economic, socio-political, and environmental factors. All these factors follow the push and pull mechanism, the push factor forces people to move whereas the pull factor attracts people. Almost all migrations to date are following this pattern. Currently, the world is suffering from a devastating pandemic. Bangladesh is also suffering from this pandemic due to its dense population and lack of awareness about safe hygiene among the marginalized, illiterate & underprivileged people. The government of Bangladesh (GoB) has imposed lockdown as a public holiday in March, 2020 to reduce the transmission of coronavirus, resulting in a total shut down of activities. Due to this lockdown, the migrant people who came to Dhaka from rural areas for better earning became incapable to maintain their livelihood; they could not manage their household expenses and rent and be bound to move to their roots. Lack of job and livelihood opportunities in urban areas make these migrants more vulnerable and forced to return to their home. This phenomenon introduced a new scenario of human movement.
As the recent pandemic halted mass movement globally and has numerous consequences; among that movement restriction is one of them. Since the outbreak, GoB imposed mobility restrictions on a local, national, and international scale. As there is no treatment, countries struggle to combat the pandemic. Non-therapeutic interventions such as social distancing, lockdown, travel ban are the most useful measures to combat. Developing and under-developing countries are struggling to combat the spread and Bangladesh is one of them. On March 8, 2020, Bangladesh reported its first coronavirus cases. As the virus spread and cost people’s lives, the GoB decided to follow non-therapeutic measures, promoted social distancing and imposed a lockdown strategy. As a result, various sectors such as educational institutes, garment factories, industries, offices, business institutes have been shut down except for pharmacy, hospitals, and emergency services.
Internal Reverse Migration
Labor and low-income people particularly who migrate to major cities such as Dhaka are more vulnerable and facing numerous problems such as unemployment, difficulties to maintain daily expenditure and house rent. Subsequently, they cannot cope up with the situation and decide to go back to their home where they come from. Basically, poor individuals from rural areas migrate to the major urban areas such as Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur, and Chittagong for work. Some migrants reached successfully while many could not. They started their journey on foot due to road transportation being suspended. These helpless migrants have to go miles on foot. A report showed that about 10 million people rushed to leave Dhaka on the day when the government imposed public holiday in March in response to minimize the spread.
When the lockdown process was about to end initially, many workers re-migrated to Dhaka facing the pandemic risk to save their employment as garment owners re-open their factories. However, when the lockdown strategy extended nationwide, these poor and helpless migrants from different areas had to return following the same pattern. A study showed that from 30 March to 15 April 2020, more than 620 thousand domestic migrants moved to their place of origin. Most of the movement occurred from Dhaka. Same study showed the gender ratio of domestic migrants’ movement. According to the study, more than 80% of male and about 18% female workers move to their origin from 8 March to 15 April 2020. Dhaka, Gazipur, Narayanganj, Comilla and Chattogram are top 5 districts from where migrants are moving whereas Satkhira, Natore, Jhenaidah, Pabna and Jessore are top 5 districts to where migrants are moving.
Migration is a global phenomenon and from ancient times humanity has been on the move. Migration is one of the important forces in development while many individuals migrate out of choice. In this recent pandemic, Bangladesh has observed such counter stream movement patterns which is termed as Reverse Migration. Bangladesh enforced lockdown as a non-therapeutic measure to minimize the spread. Some are privileged to work from home but the majority of people are not that lucky. A significant number of people live hand to mouth, so lockdown has not proved suitable for them. There is a need to adopt welfare measures for the migrant workers who are most vulnerable due to restrictions on mobility and lack of employment opportunities.
Syed Sajidur Rahman is pursuing a Master’s degree in Population, Reproductive Health, Gender and Development at East-West University, Bangladesh.