Internal Migration and Climate Induced Displacement in Bangladesh

Part One: Internal Migration in Bangladesh

Internal migration has been acknowledged as a major policy concern and a matter of growing public interest in Bangladesh. Migrants refer to the individuals who have shifted their place for residing either by crossing a border of international level or by transferring within their country of origin to a different region, municipalities, or districts (Hossain 2020). The case has been observed as both villain and savior regarding the development, and a driver of the expansion of economy and modernization, however also the cause for the deprivation in the urban region and also the destructor of the traditional life in the rural area. The tension associated with the matter is not a usual or regular one for a nation that is going through the process of a rapid transition in the socio-economic sector, ranging from the low level of income average past to a middle income and the industrial future. Simply the migration can be referred to a great extent Industrialization & Urbanization are a one-sided symbiotic process and the underlying forces that are difficult to ignore (Shahid et al 2016). However, those forces are beyond the control and the responses of policy still is a concerning matter at the aggregate level and in the local level. In this paper, internal migration is viewed from a positive light and recognized as necessary for the transformation of the economy and necessary for the decrease of the poverty level.

The paper, therefore, elaborates the causes, nature, and dimension of the migration process and specifies the role of the three factors which are distinct from each other such as the quality of the public services, livelihood & economy, and the existence of the challenges in the environmental conditions. However, it is equally important to focus on the ongoing debate and generally informed situation of migration and the concerned and associated policy-related question. The paper provides an overview of the migration theory and trends, the environmental and socioeconomic pressures prevailing in the country of Bangladesh.

It is an undeniable trend in Bangladesh and a major element in the history of Bangladesh. Several policies and studies have recorded and documented large sizer of movements both the internal area and the external area of the country. Current research provides the number of the migrants in the external area which is above the six lakh and the level of remittances inwardly as approaching at a staggering of 10% of gross domestic product. The internal level of migration has been generally recognized as the phenomenon of urbanization and the rate of urbanization has been limited at 3 % over the year 1975 to 2009 and it is recorded as the highest rate in the whole world. It is very necessary for differentiating the seasonal and longer period of movements of the population and might be described as enforced migration and selective migration. The challenges regarding the environment play a great role in two terms. The first one is the referring to the country’s long-established pattern of the season of the rural temporary worker movement which is connected with the annual rainy cycle and dry cycle.

Part Two: Climate Induced Displacement in Bangladesh

Displacement and Migration is not an unknown issue for the country of Bangladesh. citizens have been migrated or displaced due to several political, social, economic, and nature-related causes since the beginning of the nation (Rahman and Lateh 2017). However, the more trending phenomenon of changing climate suggests that the nation will have to suffer the consequences of mass internal migration and external migration for which the nation is not properly ready. Changes in the climate include the events of the weather, mainly the hydro-meteorological in the climate will have significant impact od displacement in three ways in Bangladesh. At 1^st the effects of drying and warming in some areas will decrease the potentiality of agriculture and undermine the services of the ecosystem for example the availability of fertile soil and clean water. 2^ndly the heavy precipitation will make river floods in the tropical region (Delaporte. and Maurel 2018). And at the last, the level of the sea will rise permanently which will destroy the highly productive and extensive low level of coastal areas that are living location to millions of individuals who will be forced to relocate not temporarily. Many estimations of the number of people that are forced to migrate as an outcome of the changing climate and these outcomes have attracted much policy, media, and academic attention. But there is little analysis of the consequences and causes of human migration and displacement. For this analysis, the understanding of the ground level is needed which results in displacement and migration and their linkage to the changing of the climate is particularly the worst impacted areas.  The analysis of the drivers of the migration, especially in the selected hot-places are needed to be investigated (Huq et al 2017).

The identification of the consequences must be what causes the migration and displacement and that will assist in identifying the appropriate initiatives which need to be taken by the makers of the policy. People are facing changes in the duration of the events connected to disaster and also the new types of disasters. Droughts are now considered more severe in the drought-prone areas of the northern part of Bangladesh for example. However, the drought is also impacting negatively on the new flood plains areas such as in the districts of Faridpur and Sirajgonj which was earlier characterized by the monsoon floods and by erosion of the river. A common spectacular is the fog prevailing in the winter season in the districts of Faridpur and Sirajgonj has now facing disaster events as the density of the fog and the duration of the fog is affecting the local cottage factories of the textile and agriculture sector (Delaporte and Maurel 2018).  River basin central floodplain areas are now prone to slow-onset disasters increasingly such as dense fog, river erosion, and flooding in the monsoon season. People residing in the coastal districts are now facing floods in a regular time with high tide mainly during the full and new moon period.

Drivers of Migration

In the last 25 years of history, the country has faced six devastating floods within the year of 1988 to 1998 floods single-handled causing more than a thousand deaths and displacement of people as many as 60 million from the country. Even following the cyclone named Aila in May in the year 2009 it was estimated that 100,00 people were residing on the embankments in the year 2010. The term climate-induced migration and displacement reflect a direct effective link between the changing of the climate and migration and displacement and the evidence doesn’t support the fact (Dasgupta et al 2015). Therefore, it becomes important for understanding how the changing of climate indirectly or directly affects the drivers of migration and displacement. In actual scenarios, the consequences, the causes, and the different types of migration are depending highly on the ecological and social context to and from which the individual move. There are mainly five categories that cause migration such as social, economic, political, demographic, and environmental. These mentioned five drivers might overlap or interact in several ways in different places. Out of these five categories, the changing of the climate is mainly understood for influencing primarily the driver of the environment of migration. It will also propose an impact on the drivers of the economy by affecting the income opportunity, employment opportunity, wages of the labor, and well-being of the people (Dasgupta et al 2015).

The changing of the climate gets influenced by the drivers such as floods, river erosion, drought, cyclones, and so on.  The demographic instances which influence migration are the size of the population, the structure of the population, and the prevalence of the disease. The economic factors which cause the migration are the opportunity of employment, prices of the product, and the prices of the consumer (Dastagir 2015). The policy incentives, conflict, or security can be taken as the political factors which influence migration. The researcher defines that migration decisions generally depend upon multiple determinants. For instance, the areas affected by the Aila cyclone are recognized as the political drivers which include the failure of the government before, during, and after the disaster which caused the drivers of the environment the suffering from a drinking and food crisis that forced people to decide migration. The levels of migration were significantly affected by the food shortage vulnerability (Alston 2015).

In the year 2009, the cyclone of Alia with the speed of wind level rising to 120km/hr struck the same southwestern coastal regional areas that were earlier faced the cyclone naming Bijili in the year 2009 and also was wrecked by the cyclone named Sidr in November of the year 2007. The cyclone Aila killed 193 individuals whereas the cyclone displaced more than 300,00 and damaged severely the institutions, infrastructure, crops, and productivity land which caused a huge amount of influx of saltwater into the fresh water and the agricultural land. That is how the scarcity of drinking water and food occurred after the disaster which influences the cause of migration (Islam, and Nursey-Bray, 2017). Several displaced victims would have returned to their home if the victims have provided the access to basic services for examples such as freshwater, food, and their previous livelihoods but the researchers have shown that even after more than 3 years of the cyclone Alia, the victims were forced to migrate especially in the urban areas due to the post-disaster management failure, for example, the river bank construction and the rights for basic services. However, the food for work and the cash for work programs were launched by the government of Bangladesh and also the humanitarian organizations helped but the support in the social level, economic level, and environmental level forced the victims to migrate (Nurunnabi 2016). Following the cyclone of Aila, there was a significant increase in the seasonal migration from the cyclone impacted areas, which was estimated up to 100,00 individuals. Men were primarily searching for work who migrated from four regions alone such as Pakigacha, Batiaghata, Koyra, and Dacope. These were raising concern as it could lead to the risk of sexual exploitation and risks of trafficking of the children and young women who didn’t have the slightest idea of such risks which was hanging on them. The debate regarding the fact whether individuals choose to migrate and force to migrate is still ongoing in the context of the destruction of the cyclone Aila (Amin, Zhang and Yang 2015).

Consequences and Causes of Migration Due to Climate Change

The European Asylum Support Office is a European agency that plays their key part in the concrete development of the common system of European Asylum. The office was established to enhance the practical life cooperation on the asylum matters and help its member states for their domestic level and international level of obligation for protecting the individuals who require it.  The United Kingdom has extensive provisions for protecting the individuals seeking asylum while giving protection to the public from the individuals who can exploit the system of Asylum (Madziva, and Thondhlana, 2017). The application process of the asylum seekers begins at the border irrespective of any country. For reducing a huge load of asylum cases, a fast-track process has been developed and that also allows specific applications to get rejected upon receipt if the United Kingdom regards that the asylum seeker’s country to be safe and sound. Apart from that all other applications seeking Asylum, a quick decision is taken on the well-established matter of criteria of whether the individuals have a strong fear of persecution or other related harm. For example, a new program has been launched in response to the crisis of Syria which has selected only a few refugees from the region of Syria. In the early time of 2000s, a record was observed where many individuals were seeking asylum which was reached the number of 84,132 in the year 2002 (Gianfreda, 2018).  

Over the past few years due to the increasing number entering the United Kingdom and the nature of the Asylum system for making consideration about the appeals and application, a significant backlog of cases has been created causing substantial delays. That is why the number of asylum cases pending at the end of the year 2015 reached the number of 24,236. The home office is the department of the government handing the primary responsibility for all the aspects connected to the immigration system even including the applications for Asylum. The term asylum gives the meaning of protection which is offered to the individuals who are running from persecution in their own home country. The individuals who meet all the criteria of receiving the help of Asylum are given the status of refugees (Idris 2017).

Nearly 18,000 individuals from the country of Bangladesh and fled for applying for the Asylum system in different countries in the year 2019. This measures the 0.11 % of all residents approximately (Goodman and Mahmood 2019). The most reached countries have been Greece, France, and the United Kingdom but overall, 94% of applications were rejected. More specifically according to world data out of 1364 applications only 88 applications were accepted by the United Kingdom government which shows the acceptance rate for Bangladesh refugees are only 13.2%. After that residence as per the law for a continuous timeframe of 5 years in the United Kingdom generally qualifies a refugee to make the application for United Kingdom citizenship (Mayblin, and James, 2019). If any individual does not qualify for the status of refugee or the humanitarian protection but also the removal would breach the human rights obligation of the United Kingdom, then a circumstance mainly arises when that individual has a family and private tie in the country, then in that exceptional case, the individual might be granted the permission temporarily to remain in the United Kingdom. The information of Biometric must be given upon making the entrance to the continent of United Kingdom. The policy and law surrounding and governing the Asylum and immigration system are very much difficult and complex. (Ahmed et al 2020)

Policy Recommendations

Conclusion

In the end, it can be said that owing to the sixth-largest origin country which has been sourced for the migrants in the international level of the world with the figure of 7.8 million Bangladeshi migrants who are residing abroad reported in the year 2019 Bangladesh has many factors which need immediate attention from the international viewpoint. Many factors such as natural calamity, unemployment must be managed so that the rate of migrants living aboard can be reduced. The main enforced factor of natural calamities such as cyclone and other disasters needs to be identified before and must be taken preparatory action to reduce the damaging impacts in the urban and rural region. Due to such disaster circumstances, victims are forced to migrate in different countries and stay under there as a refugee and governed by the authorities of the foreign countries. Thus, the connection between refugees and forced migration is established.

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