“The pandemic has added to my miseries”: Bangladeshi migrant workers’ social protection revisited
| Author | Syeda Rozana Rashid,Anas Ansar,Abu Faisal Md. Khaled |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221141759 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | South Asia |
“The pandemic has added
to my miseries”: Bangladeshi
migrant workers’social
protection revisited
Syeda Rozana Rashid
University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Anas Ansar
Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS),
University of Bonn, Germany
Abu Faisal Md. Khaled
Department of International Relations, Bangladesh University
of Professionals, Bangladesh
Abstract
Theprotectionofmigrantworkershasreceivedrenewedattentioninthewakeofthe
COVID-19 pandemic. This article depicts how unpreparedness, inadequate social security
and support services, and pre-existing socio-economic disparities disproportionately impacted
Bangladeshi migrant workers during the pandemic. Adopting a qualitative approach based on
findings from existing literature and surveys and primary data collected through interviews
with returnee Bangladeshi migrants from the Gulf States, the article argues that the dearth
of institutional, legal, social, and political understanding of the needs of migrants remains
the main impediment to a comprehensive social protection system. The findings call for
designing a crisis response and recovery policy, preparing a returnee database and leveraging
bilateral, regional, and global processes to ensure migrants’uninterrupted protection at home
and abroad. The article also underscores the importance of a nuanced understanding and prac-
tice of gendered social support, and above all, adopting a rights-based approach to labor
migration.
Corresponding author:
Syeda Rozana Rashid, Department of International Relations, Faculty of Social Sciences, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh.
Emails: srr21rozana@gmail.com, rozana@du.ac.bd
South Asia
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2023, Vol. 8(1) 273–290
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/20578911221141759
journals.sagepub.com/home/acp
Keywords
Bangladesh, COVID-19 pandemic, gender, Gulf, labor migration, social protection
Introduction
For decades, international labor migration has played a crucial role in reducing poverty, stimulating
economic growth, and improving the socio-economic conditions of both sending and receiving
countries. Despite being an important development actor, migrant workers’vulnerabilities, particu-
larly in times of crisis, remain largely unaddressed in the policy and academic domain (Mingot and
Mazzucato, 2018). In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic unveiled the fragile migration govern-
ance and absence of adequate protective mechanisms on both ends of the migratory chain (Jamil
and Datta, 2021; Karim et al., 2020). It is now well-recognized that international labor migrants
were hit particularly hard in terms of health and socioeconomic indicators, both in their country
of origin and destination (Leach et al., 2020; Siddiqui, 2021a). Furthermore, increasingly rigid
immigration controls, arbitrary recruitment practices, and employer-tied visa sponsorship largely
exclude them from the protections of national labor law. Such ambiguous legal status makes it dif-
ficult, if not impossible, for migrants to seek adequate social protection in their host countries
(Al-Ali, 2020; Babar, 2020). Amid various state-led support programs, migrants received littl e
attention during the peak of the pandemic in their countries of origin and destination (Gentilini,
2021). This is demonstrated through migrants’forced deportation, arbitrary dismissal, and exclu-
sion from social service schemes launched by many receiving states in the aftermath of the pan-
demic (Ansar, 2022; Menon and Vadakepat, 2021). Moreover, the remittance sent by the
migrant workers is a ‘crucial lifeline’for at least 800 million relatives living back home in low-
and middle-income countries. This financial support, estimated at US$554 billion in 2019, is
vital for the left-behind family members to meet their nutritional, health, educational, and
housing needs. Such abrupt disruption of this vital financial supply line has serious implications
for the daily lives and sources of livelihood of many migrant households around the world
(Leach et al., 2020; UNNM, 2020: 2).
Against this backdrop, this article examines the plight of low-wage migrant workers during the
pandemic. Using Bangladesh as a case, the various risks faced by migrant workers in the aftermath
of COVID-19 and the reasons that led to such disruption are explored in the article. It asks the fol-
lowing questions: What forms of challenges were encountered by men and women migrants during
the pandemic? What were the major impediments to migrants’social safety during the crisis? How
can migrants’social safety be improved to address the future crisis? The aim is to identify gaps in
readiness that arose in a crisis and understand how its breadth and scope differ in a ‘crisis’versus a
‘normal’situation.
There are compelling reasons to revisit the social protection of migrants, particularly in the after-
math of the COVID-19 pandemic. What is distinctive about the pandemic-induced crisis, as com-
pared to previous emergencies, is the scale and scope of its impact. Unprecedented in recent history,
the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the lives and health of people throughout the world.
In addition, there is a wide discrepancy in migrants’abilities to endure and recover from the pan-
demic’s various shocks, which warrants detailed scholarly inquiry. With emerging research starting
to document the manifold impacts of the pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of Bangladeshi
migrants (i.e. Ansar, 2022; Jamil and Datta, 2021; Karim et al., 2020; Siddiqui, 2021a), the
274 Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 8(1)
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