The Hindu Business Line : The world of those on the move

The greatest percentage increase in the unauthorised immigrant population to the US between 2000 and 2005 was from India reveals World Migration 2005: Costs and Benefits of International Migration. International Social Work: Issues, Strategies, and Programs discusses the plight of forced migrants. Sociology for the Changing World goes on to expose how globalisation is complicit to illegal migration. And, finally, Exile and Belonging dwells on India's experience with population flows.

That there are many Indians in the US is no news. But that the `unauthorised immigrant population' from India into the US has more than doubled in the last about five years, definitely is.

Mexico was the leading source country for unauthorised immigration with nearly six million residents in the US in 2005, says the August 2006 issue of `Population Estimates' from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics. "However, the greatest percentage increase in the unauthorised immigrant population from 2000 to 2005 occurred among immigrants from India (133 per cent) and Brazil (70 per cent)," even as the total grew by 24 per cent over the period.

"The US remains a dominant country of destination, home now to the largest number of immigrants in its history," says World Migration 2005: Costs and Benefits of International Migration of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), published by Academic Foundation (www.academicfoundation.com). "UN estimates place the total number of foreign-born individuals (in the US) at 35 million, including the growing undocumented population. This corresponds roughly to 11 per cent of the total population."

Migration is a complex global issue says the book. "All 190 or so sovereign states of the world are now either points of origin, transit or destination for migrants; often all three at once." Worldwide number of immigrants is around 200 million, or three per cent of population. Not a high number, `though their presence and visibility in social, economic and political terms can be.'

A chapter titled `Balancing the benefits and costs of skilled migration in the Asia-Pacific region' has a section on India. "A modern success story in terms of the gains it has made from skilled emigration," says the IOM. "India encourages its students to go abroad to complete high-tech degrees, especially in the US, from where they bring home money, new knowledge and, above all, an `entrepreneurial bug'."

There is also a flip side. "Many skilled non-resident Indians (NRIs) who work or have business interests in India, do not return home permanently," owing to `differences in the standard of living' and `frustrations of doing business in India'.

As a result, "NRIs want to `circulate' rather than return, unlike migrants from Taiwan who have increasingly returned home to start businesses or to work in established companies."

A pervasive theme in the report is `remittances'. Migrants who settle abroad and have their family join them are less likely to contribute to development through remittances, observes the IOM. "Experts warn against an over-reliance on remittances, and urge that they be seen as an initial investment in longer-term economic growth rather than a way of life."

Jordan may be an exception. "Remittances sent home by Jordanian expatriates rose to the equivalent of 23 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) in 2003. This percentage is the highest in the Arab region, followed by Yemen, where remittances account for 16 per cent of the country's GDP, Lebanon with 14 per cent, and Morocco with 10 per cent."

For India, the percentage may be about three to four per cent. "India derives benefits from its overseas workforce to the tune of more than $20 billion in annual remittances, roughly 10 per cent of the world's total.

"This figure even exceeds the money remitted to Mexico by the far larger population of legal and illegal migrants from that country working in the US," is a snatch from Siddharth Srivastava's article dated August 25, on www.atimes.com, about the US' Population Estimates we'd started off with.

"Over four million Indian workers in the Gulf region remit nearly $5bn a year, says www.thepeninsulaqatar.com in a report dated August 11. "Foreign workers, mainly from India and Pakistan, send home nearly nine per cent of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member nations' GDP each year."

Forced migration

Not all migration is by choice. Forced migration happens when people have to leave their habitual place of residence, `in circumstances often of extreme stress,' owing to political, economic and social factors. In such migrations, departure may to "a comparatively unknown destination and under conditions of travel and entry that frequently offer little if any security to those migrating," write David Cox and Manohar Pawar in International Social Work: Issues, Strategies, and Programs, from Vistaar (www.indiasage.com).

The book studies varied fields for social work, such as development, poverty, conflict and post-conflict reconstruction. The chapters on migration discuss the plight of forced migrants, who may be `displaced persons, asylum seekers, refugees, illegal immigrants, and migrant workers.' The section on illegal immigrants explains how these people "invariably maintain a low profile, avoiding authorities and facilities that ask for identification papers."

They look for "forms of mass low-paid and non-unionised employment, where employers are willing to turn a blind eye to their illegal status knowing that they are the more easily exploited." It is not as if authorities don't know these things; only, they'd act when `politically desirable'.

In the case of migrant workers, the authors mention two developments that act as protection against exploitation. One, changes in international law, giving migrant workers the status as `foreigners' and labour laws governing their working conditions. And two, "introduction of programmes designed to raise the knowledge and awareness levels of would-be and actual migrant workers, to enhance their capabilities, and generally to provide support." For instance, in the Philippines, there are programmes that operate `at the recruitment level in rural areas'. And, `in the receiving countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore,' there are NGOs establishing meeting points `where migrant workers can gather, share experiences, voice complaints, support each other, and develop a degree of self-help capacity.'

Human trafficking is A coordinated activity

Do you know that the garment industry in Canada, which is predominantly Canadian-owned, employs close to 90 per cent sewing machine operators and 80 per cent of patternmakers and cutters from outside the country? Garment industry is "the eighth largest provider of manufacturing jobs," writes Roxana Ng in a chapter titled `Exploring the globalised regime of ruling from the standpoint of immigrant workers.' It is one of the dozen or so chapters in Sociology for Changing the World, edited by Caelie Frampton, Gary Kinsman, A.K. Thompson and Kate Tilleczek, and published by Fernwood (www.fernwoodbooks.ca).

"What is seldom discussed is the use of undocumented workers to provide a cheap and vulnerable labour supply for industries and as a means to depress the wages and working conditions of local workers," says Ng. It is not as if illegal migration and human trafficking happen outside the legal institutions and apparatuses of globalisation.

"Peter Kwang's long-term study of undocumented migrants on both sides of the Pacific shows that human trafficking is a highly coordinated transnational activity that involves international business networks facilitated by governments (more appropriately government officials), business agents, transportation companies and so forth." It seems trafficking people is `a more profitable venture than drug trafficking'!

Complex population flows

Some of the largest and most complex population flows have happened in the Indian subcontinent, says Pia Oberoi in Exile and Belonging, from Oxford University Press (www.oup.com).

The book begins on a traumatic note, chronicling the fallout of Partition in August 1947. "Millions poured across the new international borders, destitute and weak from hunger and disease. Refugee caravans were attacked en route, refugee camps raided and their inhabitants murdered, and thousands of women abducted by the `enemy community'... ." Oberoi reminds us that an unanswered question has been whether the displaced people were refugees. Or, was it merely an exchange of population? At the close of the book is what may be topical, `Sri Lankan Tamil internally displaced persons and refugees'. A bunch of thematic reads that can displace a whole weekend, especially if you aren't going anywhere.

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

D. Murali

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