Reintegrating the Migrants

By Mohamed Munas and Nadhiya Najab

On 04 August 2015

Image courtesy: LMD

Indra* left Sri Lanka in 1998 to work in the Middle East as a housemaid. Her contract was for a period of two years, and she hoped the income earned at the end of her stay would be enough to help her family ‘raise their heads’. Ten years on, she has gone back to Saudi on multiple occasions. This time round, the need to migrate is most pressing; she wants to earn some money to pay for her daughter’s wedding and dowry.  She feels the only option available to her is to migrate once more.

This is just one story of a person who decided to engage in labour migration. While most labour contracts are for a period of two years, we often have no idea what happens to these migrants after they return. Do they find employment opportunities when they come back? Do they migrate for another two years? What are the challenges they face when working in a foreign country? These are questions we do not have answers to.

As per the latest statistics available at the Sri Lankan Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), in 2012 the number of individuals who left Sri Lanka for the purpose of employment was 282,331. This number however, does not distinguish between first time labour migrants and repeat labour migrants. While the national labour migration policy for Sri Lanka published in 2008 recognises return and reintegration as an important stage in the labour migration process, the dearth of information with regard to how many labour migrants are returning each year, makes it difficult to make available to these returnees the benefits and counseling they are entitled to upon return.

It is important to recognise however, that collecting data on return migrants is not as easy as collecting pre-departure data where – to a great extent – prospective labour migrants are compelled to register with the SLBFE. The collection of data on returnee migrants should begin from the destination country and then be verified by the local immigration and emigration department and non-state actors working on the issue of labour migration. Cooperation between different regulatory bodies at the point of data collection will ensure that policy decisions reflect the situation on the ground.

Data gaps also exist in knowing the type of skills gained by a labour migrant upon return. Sharing information about the skills gained as a result of migration can be utilised in the local context to engage in higher skilled employment. This also increases the choices available to a potential migrant, as he or she is no longer limited to migrating in search of employment. Awareness of skills gained has the potential to reduce the risks faced by labour migrants in the destination country where labour laws do not usually apply to migrant labourers in lower skilled employment.

Returning migrants require support to reintegrate into society from a social and economic perspective.  To this end it is necessary to speak to the returnee migrants and understand their migration experience as some returnees may have undergone difficulties in terms of the work they did and others may have had difficulties in being away from their families for an extended period of time. Therefore it may be necessary to provide psychosocial counselling to the migrant and even their families to help them reintegrate better.  Other forms of assistance could be economic in nature in the form of providing advice or training on saving /investing their hard earned remittances and facilitating links with financial institutions. The lack of data on returnee migrants makes it harder for practitioners to identify their needs and the nature their needs.

At present, the implementation of activities linked to return and reintegration of labour migrants takes place in an isolated manner, primarily carried out by grassroots organisations working with returnees at a small scale. Perhaps if such advisory facilities were more widely available, migrants like Indra might not feel like they had no choice but to migrate as they would have more options available to them.

Therefore government institutions such as the department of immigration and emigration and the SLBFE – which has a wide reach across the country – should work together with multilateral organisations which have experience in working in similar contexts – to partner with other non-state actors currently working on the issue of return and reintegration. By understanding what is already been implemented, lessons can be learnt of successes and failures which can help widen the scope of the implementation activities currently underway and already listed in the reintegration action plans.

*Name changed to protect identity

Originally published in LMD August Issue