Lockdown in India has impacted 40 million internal migrants: World Bank

The nationwide lockdown in India which started about a monthago has impacted nearly 40 million internal migrants, the World Bank has said.

The lockdown in India has impacted the livelihoods of alarge proportion of the country’s nearly 40 million internal migrants. Around50,00060,000 moved from urban centers to rural areas of origin in the span of afew days, the bank said in a report released on Wednesday.

   

According to the report — ‘COVID-19 Crisis Through aMigration Lens’ — the magnitude of internal migration is about two-and-a-halftimes that of international migration.

Lockdowns, loss of employment, and social distancingprompted a chaotic and painful process of mass return for internal migrants inIndia and many countries in Latin America, it said.

Thus, the COVID-19 containment measures might havecontributed to spreading the epidemic, the report said.

Governments need to address the challenges facing internalmigrants by including them in health services and cash transfer and othersocial programmes, and protecting them from discrimination, it said.

World Bank said that coronavirus crisis has affected bothinternational and internal migration in the South Asia region.

As the early phases of the crisis unfolded, manyinternational migrants, especially from the Gulf countries, returned tocountries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh until travel restrictionshalted these flows.

Some migrants had to be evacuated by governments, such asthose of China and Iran, it said.

Before the coronavirus crisis, migrant outflows from theregion were robust, the report said.

The number of recorded, primarily low-skilled emigrants fromIndia and Pakistan rose in 2019 relative to the prior year but is expected todecline in 2020 due to the pandemic and oil price declines impacting the Gulfcountries.

In India, the number of low-skilled emigrants seekingmandatory clearance for emigration rose slightly by eight percent to 368,048 in2019.

In Pakistan, the number of emigrants jumped 63 per cent to6,25,203 in 2019, largely due to a doubling of emigration to Saudi Arabia, itsaid.

According to the bank, migration flows are likely to fall,but the stock of international migrants may not decrease immediately, sincemigrants cannot return to their countries due to travel bans and disruption totransportation services.

In 2019, there were around 272 million internationalmigrants.

The rate of voluntary return migration is likely to fall,except in the case of a few cross-border migration corridors in the South (suchas Venezuela-Colombia, Nepal-India, ZimbabweSouth Africa, Myanmar-Thailand), itsaid.

Migrant workers tend to be vulnerable to the loss ofemployment and wages during an economic crisis in their host country, more sothan native-born workers.

Lockdowns in labour camps and dormitories can also increasethe risk of contagion among migrant workers.

Many migrants have been stranded due to the suspension oftransport services. Some host countries have granted visa extensions andtemporary amnesty to migrant workers, and some have suspended the involuntaryreturn of migrants, it said.

Observing that government policy responses to the COVID-19crisis have largely excluded migrants and their families back home, the WorldBank said there is a strong case for including migrants in the near-term healthstrategies of all countries, given the externalities associated with the healthstatus of an entire population in the face of a highly contagious pandemic.

The Bank said governments would do well to consider short,medium and long-term interventions to support stranded migrants, remittanceinfrastructure, loss of subsistence income for families back home, and accessto health, housing, education, and jobs for migrant workers in host/transitcountries and their families back home.

The pandemic has also highlighted the global shortage ofhealth professionals and an urgent need for global cooperation and long-terminvestments in medical training, it said.

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