“The pandemic has added to my miseries”: Bangladeshi migrant workers’ social protection revisited

Abstract

The protection of migrant workers has received renewed attention in the wake of the 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 practice of gendered social support, and above all, adopting a rights-based approach to labor migration.

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, particularly 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 governance 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 difficult, 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 little 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 exclusion from social service schemes launched by many receiving states in the aftermath of the pandemic (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 following 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 aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. What is distinctive about the pandemic-induced crisis, as compared 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 pandemic'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 larger context of persistent gaps in the existing labor migration policy and social protection mechanisms and crisis preparedness by the states is largely missing from the analysis.

While migrants’ rights and related issues in the Global North received increasing attention from scholars (Holzmann and Koettl, 2015; van Ginneken, 2013), a similar understanding of the Global South remains limited. Moreover, existing literature on the Global South focuses on migrants’ lack of access to formal welfare in receiving countries, emphasizing the role of informal mechanisms, i.e. social networks, friends, and families, through which migrants access resources (Rashid, 2016; Sabates-Wheeler and Feldman, 2011; Schiller, 2011). Nevertheless, the informal mechanisms have certain limitations and are deemed insufficient to strengthen migrants’ fallback position in a crisis (Rashid, 2016). Therefore, there is a clear need for renewed attention to the legal and socio-economic barriers migrants experience while trying to access formal support services. This article attempts to fill in these gaps and proposes a durable solution for future crisis preparedness, one in which workers’ welfare lies at the core of the system.

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted policy-oriented research due to the breadth of the pandemic's cross-sectoral implications for migrants’ lives and livelihoods. The logistical, social, and health considerations in the aftermath of the pandemic, therefore, have clearly influenced the methodology of this article, which is centered on research flexibilities and broader collaboration on various fronts for data collection. Given the persistently evolving nature of the pandemic and its consequences, this study does not claim to provide a comprehensive pandemic-led impact analysis on migrant lives. Instead, it attempts to underline the deep-seated flaws and challenges in the existing protection framework for migrants within the South–South migration corridor. Doing so, it expects to bring more clarity and accountability to labor migration governance in the future.

The study, therefore, involves a multi-pronged qualitative research method. The thematic analysis presented here is based on both primary and secondary data. Between June 2020 and February 2022, a total of 25 in-depth interviews (IDIs) were carried out, consisting of 20 male and five returnee female migrant workers from the Gulf countries. In addition, the authors conducted 10 focus group discussions (FGDs) with 66 female returnees in female migrant-rich locations, such as Manikganj, Rupganj, Dhaka, Dohar, and Keraniganj. Additionally, 20 key informant interviews (KIIs) with experts and relevant stakeholders in Bangladesh were conducted for data validation. The respondents were informed about the purpose of the study and its strict use in expanding critical scholarship in migration studies and positive policy framing on contract labor migration. For anonymity, the actual names of respondents are changed throughout the study.

The primary findings were triangulated and substantiated by secondary sources that consist of newspaper reports, government statistics, NGO reports, and recent academic publications. Particularly, two major studies were instrumental in overall validation of information: first, the Bangladesh Civil Society for Migrants’ (BCSM) study that surveyed 200 households in 21 districts during May and June 2020, and second, a BRAC study on 558 returnee Bangladeshi workers, conducted between 2019 and 2020.

The article is organized into six sections. Following the introduction, the second section draws on social protection literature to develop the study's conceptual framework. The third section presents an overview of Bangladeshi labor migration to the Gulf countries. The fourth section examines the predicament that returnee Bangladeshi workers face in the Country of Destination (CoD), as well as in their home country. The fifth section analyzes the factors contributing to protection gaps. The concluding section summarizes important findings and offers policy suggestions.

Conceptual framework

Social protection refers to “resources and strategies to deal with social risks, such as poverty or obligations and needs of care, which might impede the realization of life chances and well-being” (Bilecen et al., 2019: 1). It is usually targeted at the most vulnerable groups in society, involving various tangible and intangible resources and activities that reduce their social risks (Faist et al., 2014; Sabates-Wheeler and Feldman, 2011). This article considers both formal protection provided by the state, markets, and organizations, as well as informal protection, manifested in interpersonal networks (Mingot and Mazzucato, 2018).

Elements of social protection

Fundamentals to ensure the social protection of the workers are: social insurance, social assistance, and labor market regulation (ILO 2006). Social insurance provides workers with protection against crisis, social assistance provides support in crisis, whereas labor market regulation indicates basic rights and standard of work. The latter encompasses a wide range of activities, such as social protection laws, bilateral social security agreements, employer–employee relations, and workers’ capacity to invest in social and cultural ties at home (Avato et al., 2010; Rashid, 2016). As far as labor migrants are concerned, a combination of formal rules, regulations, policies, and norms set by the state, as well as informal personal and community support capitalized on by migrants for wellbeing, comprises the idea of social protection (Bilecen and Barglowski, 2014).

Social protection and social policies

In the rapidly expanding set of policies and programs, social policies are increasingly being seen as a part of social protection that denotes public actions taken in response to levels of vulnerability, risk, and deprivation within a society (Conway et al., 2000). Taking this notion into account, the United Nations (UN) prescribes social protection as “a set of public and private policies and programmes undertaken by societies in response to various contingencies to offset the absence or substantial reduction of income from work; to provide assistance to families with children as well as provide people with basic health and housing” (United Nations, 2000: 4). This conceptualization is significant in identifying the rights, needs, and empowerment to produce an all-encompassing policy framework of social protection (Sabates-Wheeler and Devereux, 2008).

Social protection priorities and politics during crisis

Research proves that social protection favors those groups with the strongest voice, while ‘new’ poor are also created during a crisis (Barrientos and Hulme, 2008). Studies in the context of financial crises in Latin America and East Asian countries show that short-term emergency responses to the crisis turn out to be dysfunctional in the medium term, but it takes considerable time and political capital to change course (Barrientos and Hulme, 2008). The scale and scope of protection in a crisis period may well vary from a ‘normal period’ of time, as witnessed in the context of migration in the aftermath of the pandemic. Adopting a sustainable social protection initiative in this situation depends on how inclined the political environment is towards the prioritization of social protection. Both scholars and policymakers tend to focus on “definitional debates, policy design and impact evaluations, with relatively little analysis of the ways in which politics shape policy” (Lavers and Hickey, 2016: 388).

Gendered social protection

The framework of social protection also calls for the investigation of a broader landscape of activities, both formal and informal, and embedded in the hierarchies of sex, age, ethnicity, and class (Amelina, 2016). While many workers with regular job contracts and stable incomes have been exposed to a situation of “absolute unpreparedness” (Lo and Hsieh, 2020), protection needs demand a gender analysis. However, “an isolated view on gender obscures the relationality and internal differentiation of social categories which operate alongside intersectional hierarchies” (Bilecen et al., 2019: 2), since it operates with other markers of difference, such as ethnicity, age, marital and education status, and social class (Ansar, 2022). As such, gender needs to be understood within “the set of mutually constitutive structures and practices which produce gender differentiation, gender inequalities, and gender hierarchy in a given society” (Orloff, 1996: 52).

Based on the above conceptualization, the remainder of this article examines the challenges migrants faced in negotiating access to limited provisions for social protection.

Labor migration from Bangladesh and the state of migrants’ social protection

Labor migration has been recognized as a vital poverty alleviation and development strategy for Bangladesh (Siddiqui, 2016). The Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) data show that, since 1976, more than 14 million Bangladeshis have migrated to the Gulf and other Southeast Asian countries for unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in the infrastructure, manufacturing, and service sectors (BMET, 2022). The statistics, however, do not include the number of returnees. The Bangladeshi migrants predominantly hail from poor rural households with few other means to diversify their earnings (Rashid, 2016).

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country observed a staggering decrease of 69% in its overseas labor migration from 2019 to 2020. A total of only 217,669 Bangladeshis migrated abroad in 2020, compared to 700,159 in 2019 (BMET, 2022). Notably, more than 90 per cent of individuals who migrated in 2019 did so between January and March, prior to the pandemic's impact on the overall migration process (BMET, 2022). The figure increased significantly in 2021, as 485,893 Bangladeshis managed to migrate amid the pandemic-related restrictions and shrinking work opportunities across the globe. Women's migration during the period corresponds with the overall flow. A total of 80,143 women workers migrated from Bangladesh in 2021, compared to 21,934 in 2020 (BMET, 2022).

During the pandemic, Bangladesh received a record number of returnee migrants owing to job loss, arbitrary dismissal, and forced deportation. Around 408,000 migrant workers returned to the country in 2020, followed by 64,646 in 2021 while approximately 100,000 new workers, who had completed all the necessary procedures before the COVID-19 outbreak, could not migrate because of air travel restrictions (Siddiqui 2021b: 01).

A crucial aspect of labor migration from Bangladesh is the regular remittance flow, which remained persistent despite the pandemic. In 2019, Bangladesh received a little over US$18 billion in total remittances, which increased in 2020, when the country received US$21.7 billion (BMET, 2022). There can be two reasons for continuous remittance flow. First, due to contract termination and abrupt job loss, many migrants from the Gulf States had to return to Bangladesh permanently. Many of them sent their previous savings before their departure. Second, nearly 35% of the total remittances received in 2020 came from North America, Europe, and South East Asia. While the flow reflects some consistency, families traditionally dependent on remittances from the Gulf countries received less during the pandemic than during normal times (BMET, 2022).

Legal and institutional arrangements

Migrants’ contribution to the national economy and the migrant households’ dependency on remittances has essentially brought about legal and policy changes favoring migration. Bangladesh is the first country in South Asia to adopt an articulated normative framework for migrant workers. Several national laws and policies have been enacted to regulate labor migration from Bangladesh, including the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act (OEMA) 2013, the Wage Earners’ Welfare Fund Rules 2002, the Emigration Rule 2002, and the Recruiting Agent License and Conduct Rules 2002 (ILO, 2013). Over the past five years, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has enacted the Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Policy 2016, the Overseas Employment and Migrant Rules 2017, and the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board Act 2018. OEMA articles 29 and 30 of Chapter VII contain directives on the security and welfare of expatriate workers and their left-behind family members. Recently, in its eighth five-year development plan, the Bangladesh government emphasizes, among other issues, the necessity of enhancing the skills base for the development of new overseas labor market opportunities; safeguarding migrants’ human and labor rights; revising current policies to foster migration-sensitive health policies and strategies; and incorporating the needs of women migrant workers into migration policy (GED, 2020).

Until the 1990s, overseas migration used to be managed by the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET). In 2001, the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment (MoEWOE) was established to address the overall welfare and equal opportunities for all migrants. Later, several government agencies, including the Wage Earner's Welfare Board (WEWB), Technical Training Centres (TTCs), the District Employment and Manpower Office (DEMO), and Probashi Kallyan Bank (PKB), were established to decentralize migration governance and facilitate the specific needs of the international labor market and migrants.

State of migrants’ formal social protection

WEWB offers financial support to returnee disabled migrants and the family members of deceased migrants. The GoB introduced two compulsory insurance schemes in 2019, worth Bangladeshi Taka (BDT) 200,000 (US$2135) and BDT500,000 (US$5335), to bring aspirant migrants under Probashi Kormi Beema Nitimala (KII with WEWB Official).¹ The schemes are valid for two years and migrant workers aged between 18 and 58 years are eligible to receive a benefit depending on the severity of their injuries. In addition, scholarships and higher education grants are also offered by WEWB to migrants’ left-behind children. The government has also introduced a safe home for women migrants, call centers for migrant workers, legal aid, and counselling services in the country of destination (CoDs) (WEWB, 2022). Currently, 30 labor wings in different Bangladeshi missions are assigned to look after migrant workers’ welfare at CoDs.

Following the pandemic, the GoB distributed BDT209 crores (US$2.5 million) among 9215 returnees as cash incentives (Siddiqui, 2021b). Later, BDT500 crores (US$5.5 million) were allocated from public funds to reintegrate returnees. A three-step reintegration program was introduced for returnees, consisting of immediate support to facilitate the safe return of the stranded migrants and an allowance of BDT5000 (US$55) at the airport. Further, midterm support of BDT2 billion was allocated for migrants for a one-time loan from BDT100,000 (US$1066) to a maximum of BDT500,000 (US$5335) at a 4% interest rate (Siddiqui, 2021b). Additionally, the WEWB pledged a BDT25,000 (US$267) subsidy to Saudi Arabia-bound migrants to cover their accommodation costs for compulsory quarantine following entry into Saudi Arabia (Daily Star, 2021c).

The GoB thus claims to sufficiently extend its formal social safety nets for migrants during the pandemic. Despite all these efforts, surveys undertaken by civil society organizations and international agencies in 2020 and 2021 reveal that migrants’ access to information and support services was limited due to various challenges. These challenges include a lack of a comprehensive database and information delivery mechanism, inadequate preparedness, and gaps in protection and reintegration policies, which have been detailed in the following.

The state of migrants’ protection during the COVID-19 pandemic

Drawing on secondary information from survey reports, literature, newspapers, and the first-hand data collected through in-depth interviews with migrant workers, this section elucidates the pandemic-induced plights of migrants.

Insecurity and uncertainty at destination

With the surge of COVID-19 cases and subsequent mobility restrictions, the lives and livelihoods of Bangladeshi migrants in the Gulf were stuck in limbo. Mobility restrictions helped contain the spread of COVID-19; however, the lockdown also had a detrimental effect on migrants’ living conditions, as it jeopardized their access to money-earning activities and other essential services, including health care (Dhaka Tribune, 2020; Siddiqui, 2021b). Migrants, who usually dwell in cramped dormitory-style labor camps in the Gulf countries, were particularly prone to the COVID-19 virus. The risk of infection in migrant-intensive areas rose due to the absence of systematic quarantine, screening, and contact-tracing measures (BRAC, 2021). As of April 2021, 2729 expatriate Bangladeshis were reported to have died of coronavirus in 23 countries, including the Gulf States, whereas Saudi Arabia alone saw the death of 1228 Bangladeshis (Ejaz, 2021). As macroeconomic conditions, i.e. the drop in oil price, reduced demand in the construction sector, and business closures worsened in the Gulf countries, many Bangladeshi migrants were laid off arbitrarily, often without any notice or benefits. In addition to being without social assistance or other means of income, many workers could not return home (Siddiqui, 2021b).

The narratives of the arbitrarily terminated returnee migrants corroborate the scenario outlined above. Bilkis (aged 28), for instance, claimed that her Saudi employer refused to pay her the last four months’ salary before returning to Bangladesh in July 2020, though she had worked for him for five years. The unpaid dues amount to US$1200. She stated:

I met every demand of my employer and his family members. However, they did not pay my wages. Each time I asked for my salary, I was beaten and tortured by the employer and other family members. I tried to contact the labor office [of the Bangladesh embassy in Jeddah] and my recruitment agents. No one even picked up my phone call. Moreover, I could not contact the Saudi government, as my employer never allowed me to leave his house before I made it to the airport to return home [to Bangladesh].

Maruf (35) returned home in June 2020 from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after three years of working in a gas station. He shared his ordeal:

On the third day of declaring the lockdown, when I went to my work, the employer simply said I was no longer required, and he would pay the due wages the following day. When I went there to get the wages, he simply refused to pay and threatened me, saying I took money from the cash counter and that if I made any trouble, he would simply lodge a complaint against me to the police. I did nothing wrong, and the allegations were completely false, but the police would never trust me. I also had no proof of my unpaid wages because I usually got paid in cash.

Syed (30) has been working in Qatar since 2018. The recruitment agency told him that, in addition to his monthly salary of US$250, he would be provided with free medical insurance and accommodation by the employer. The evening his test report arrived, two men came to his shared company accommodation and removed him from it. As he stated:

I was sick, infected by COVID-19, and suddenly became homeless. I had to spend the night at a fellow Bangladeshi's place, and the next morning when I went to the hospital for treatment; they said I had no insurance coverage. My company had that hospital listed in their file, and we were told that we could get free treatment from there, which was eventually a big lie. I had no money to buy food, no place to sleep, and no way to return home.

The narratives portray insecurities endured by migrants at CoDs in the absence of legally enforceable contracts, arbitrary dismissal, wage theft, and inaccessibility to support services. The anecdotes also illuminate the loopholes and vacuums engrained in migration practices.

Return and reintegration fiasco at home

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and the associated economic impact, a notable number of Bangladeshi workers were deported from Gulf countries. Even individuals with years of work experience were subjected to the loss of their work permits. Irregular migrants had even greater difficulties deciding to return, as they had to adhere to stringent restrictions governing cross-border mobility (İçduygu, 2020). For undocumented migrant workers, returning meant losing their chances of earning nominal sums to support the family back home and, most importantly, the chances of remigration. Upon return, migrants had to face quarantine debacles at the airport. A survey report shows that 86% of returnees received no assistance after returning to Bangladesh during the first few months of the pandemic (USAID and Winrock International, 2020).

Migrants frequently complained of maltreatment at the airport, and a temporary quarantine center was established near the airport. After her deportation from Dubai to Dhaka, Sharmin (37) was taken to the Hajj Camp, the temporary quarantine center. She narrated her painful experience in this way:

I asked the authority more than 10 times why the toilet flush was not working. After this repeated query, one of them responded to me, saying the condition [of the camp] is a five-star hotel for us, compared to where we stayed previously and where we will go. It was devastating hearing that response from our fellow countrymen. We have no respect there [in the Gulf], and here [Bangladesh] is also no exception.

Many migrants’ attempts to reintegrate into society at home were met with greater stigma and marginalization, due to a lack of preparation and support services upon their abrupt return. For example, according to a survey conducted by BRAC Bangladesh, 29% of returnees reported that their relatives and neighbors did not accept their return and did not behave well with them (BRAC, 2021). Another study conducted by Winrock International on 155 returnees revealed that nearly half (48%) of returnee migrants were maltreated by community leaders and members and by friends or family (USAID and Winrock International, 2020). The reliance on informal support also became untenable. The following cases illustrate this well:

When my Kuwaiti Kafeel [local sponsor], under whom I worked for more than 10 years, informed me that he could not pay my salaries and I better go back home for now, I also thought returning home was the best option in the given situation. Nevertheless, returning home, which I perceived as a better alternative, became a nightmare once I landed at the airport. I was treated by them as if I was carrying the virus. Many friends and relatives I always supported financially did not even bother contacting me. My cousin, whom I used to send remittances to, suddenly said no remittances left, although I used to send them almost regularly. When I met the BMET officials to file a complaint, they simply said, “it is a family matter—better solve it through discussion.” (Kabir, 40)

Tofazzal (33), who worked on a date plantation for five years in Oman, used to receive relatively fair wages. However, he felt that returning home was the worst decision. As he said:

My Kafeel told me that I could stay, but I would not be paid. I would only be provided with food and accommodation for the interim [pandemic lockdown] period. I thought it would be better to go home and stay with my family. However, relatives started acting weird within a few days of my return. They acted as if it was my failure not to be able to stay there. They are happy as long as they get the Riyals from abroad and do not want me around.

The issue of wage theft was closely associated with the arbitrary return (Siddiqui, 2021b). Most returnee migrants arrived empty-handed, while many of them were already indebted. Some migrants spent days in misery, unable to pay off their debts and handle living expenses since they had little or no earnings. Mamun (33), who worked in a gas station in Saudi Arabia for five years, claims his employer refused to pay the last three months’ salary, referring to the dire business condition amid the nationwide lockdown. He was fired the next day when he requested that his employer pay him at least a fraction of his wages. His unpaid dues amount to US$1400. Tarana (30), another returnee worker from the UAE, claims that despite following all of her employer's requirements, she was not only denied her rightful wages but also verbally threatened with a fabricated accusation of petty theft to police.

The sharp decline in remittances and the subsequent return of the migrants brought financial havoc to households solely dependent on remittances. In the wake of COVID-19, the intermittence and, in some cases, absence of remittance inflows substantially reduced households’ income and, consequently, their ability to meet basic needs (Ansar et al., 2021). At that time, the families resorted to mainly three different types of coping strategies: self-mobilization, which corresponds to the measures adopted by household members to reduce their spending or increase their income from other sources; solidarity-based mobilization, involving aid from friends and close family members in the established tradition of welfare societies; and institutional mobilization, including requests by individuals to the state, civil society, or the market, to overcome financial difficulties (Billah et al., 2021).

Returnee reintegration became another significant issue that unveiled gaps in the social protection of the migrants. An IOM survey shows that almost 70% of the migrants repatriated to Bangladesh from abroad between February and June 2020 remained unemployed (IOM, 2020a). A major challenge was access to information regarding reintegration services (Siddiqui, 2021b). Although the GoB allocated a special reintegration fund for returnee migrants, only 2% of the migrants were covered (Shawon, 2021). A BRAC study on 558 returnees found that 47% of returnees remained unemployed even a year after their return (Dhaka Tribune, 2021). Migrants and their families had to resort to informal means of coping with the sudden loss of livelihood, such as seeking support from friends and family or turning to money lenders.

Whereas a section of stranded and returnee migrants desired to remigrate to the Gulf countries, this proved difficult for various reasons. Many migrant workers’ permits expired, and some had to wait months to be vaccinated, as it was mandatory to travel abroad. In 2020, over 50,000 prospective migrants and returnees were awaiting flights abroad, especially to the Gulf (Daily Star, 2021). Uncertainty gripped them, as their flights were cancelled and they lost the prospect of employment and opportunities to renew their contracts (Bhuiyan, 2020). They also anticipated considerable financial losses from non-refundable quarantine fees and air tickets (Daily Star, 2021). Since the beginning of 2022, Gulf States have eased the compulsory quarantine requirements for foreign workers. As the GoB decided to provide Pfizer vaccines against COVID-19 to persons travelling to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, migrant workers had to wait a long time and rely on approved vaccines (Molla, 2021). Meanwhile, globally, the airfare has increased exponentially, making it harder for migrants to afford it and return to work. Shariful (27), a stranded migrant, explains his ordeals as follows:

I decided to migrate abroad to avoid other problems [financial uncertainties] and to save a lump sum for the future … I ate up whatever I saved during the past few years abroad. And the suffering that I am going through now is not comparable to anything … The pandemic has added to my miseries only.

The ordeal of women migrants

Evidence abounds on how the pandemic has intensified existing gender inequalities and created new gender-biased consequences that have disproportionately impacted women migrant workers (Foley and Piper, 2020; Kelly, 2021). Due to the domestic character of their work, seclusion at home, and disconnection from the rest of the community, women migrants were, in general, barred from participating in labor market monitoring and receiving any type of social support in the CoDs. During the pandemic, Bangladeshi women workers had to deal with multiple risks because they were forced to keep working and could not get medical support (Rashid et al., 2021). There was increased demand for health, social, and domestic services in the Gulf. Sharifa (35), a Gulf returnee, stated:

When I wanted to return to Bangladesh, my employer insisted that I stay one more year. But I was not willing to do that. My employer made a fake COVID-19-positive certificate so that I could not pass the airport security. Later, I was told that flights had been cancelled. But I knew they had not been.

Another returnee, Halima (28), stated: “I had to work regularly, even during the initial surge of the coronavirus. My employer and her family members were infected with coronavirus, but still, I had to come in contact with them and take care of them.” During the pandemic, Bangladesh received 77 dead bodies of women workers from the Gulf countries, though it could not be confirmed whether these women died from coronavirus (Daily Star, 2021b). In 2021 alone, around 50,000 women migrant workers returned to Bangladesh from 21 countries for various reasons, including grave violations of workers’ rights and gender-based violence (Daily Star, 2021c). Since a considerable section of women migrants bear the sole responsibility for their left-behind family, including parents and children, their sudden layoff and return led to profound consequences for their families. The following statement by Sharifa (35) makes this explicit: “Before the pandemic, I used to support my family by sending remittances. Returning to Bangladesh would mean that I would no longer be able to support my family. That was indeed a difficult decision for me.”

Adding to their plight, women returnees in the rural areas endured social stigma and community rejection, which often derives from the nature of their work as domestic help (Rashid et al., 2021). Zohora (34), who returned from Jordan in March 2020, explained:

I do not know how they [neighbours and community members] came to know about my return home. They locked my main door from outside so that I could not go out. I felt like I was an untouchable person, though I had no symptoms of coronavirus.

What obstructs migrants’ social protection?

In what follows, the study analyzes the deep-seated structural and operational reasons behind migrants’ protection gaps during crises.

Legal, structural, and socio-economic conditions at CoDs

The study highlights three stumbling blocks to having a functional social security system at the destination. These include the unavailability of inclusive labor migration policies in CoDs, the absence of compulsory insurance schemes, and the low socio-economic status of the workers.

Gulf countries, in particular, have insufficient safety and rights provisions for migrant workers (Alsharif and Malit, 2020). In most Gulf countries, the Kafala system regulates the relationship between employers and migrant workers—a restrictive sponsorship system binding a worker's immigration status to her/his employer (Robinson, 2021). The pandemic, thus, left workers completely dependent upon their employers for their livelihood and residency. It also allowed employers to have near-total control over migrant workers’ incomes, living circumstances, nutrition, ability to work abroad, and even ability to return home. The bulk of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Gulf countries are low-wage, semi-skilled, and working in precarious conditions. Local labor laws favored the employer over the immigrant, further disempowering workers. Despite introducing the ‘employers pay’ model, the UAE and Qatar are not signatories to most international human rights and labor conventions, limiting their obligation to international systems.

Interviews with migrants revealed that most Bangladeshi workers in the Gulf countries do not possess any health insurance provisions. Subsequently, high medical costs and limited or no bargaining scope discourage migrants from seeking treatment from public hospitals or clinics. During the pandemic, migrants’ access to health care and social safety was restricted not only by lockdowns and social distancing but also by this systematic violation of their rights. Social policies are usually bound to the ‘nation-states’ and often restricted by legal status. Hence, they are often deprived as significant ‘others’ despite their contribution to the host country's economy (Ansar, et al., 2021; Vullnetari and King, 2008). Both documented and undocumented migrants suffer disproportionately from the adverse health and socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for these reasons (İçduygu, 2020).

Like elsewhere, undocumented Bangladeshi workers in the Gulf feared being reported to the immigration authorities and deported if they sought assistance, which reduced their willingness to come forward for screening, testing, contact tracing, or treatment). The system of not allowing forming and joining trade unions is also considered an additional obstacle to raising concerns about their health and safety in the workplace. Migrants’ inclusion in the public health services during the COVID-19 situation was also hindered in cases where governments did not have precise information on the distribution of the migrant population and affected individuals. Interviews with the labor attaché and MoEWOE officials reveal that missions are understaffed compared to the number of migrants. The quality and quantity of support services also depend on the personal effort and initiatives of the service providers. In 2019, a call center was established in the Jeddah mission by the Bangladesh government, which has since then attended to hundreds of calls each month and addressed most of them. Similar services were rarely available elsewhere. Missions often refer to the legal and cultural system that barred them from looking after the welfare of the workers, whereas workers commonly stated that the embassy's services were inadequate or unreachable.

The above legal and organizational factors obstruct workers from having “resources and strategies” to deal with the pandemic, which impedes their “life chances and wellbeing” (Bilecen et al., 2019: 1). Located at the bottom of the CoD's society, no tangible and intangible resources and activities were made available for foreign workers to reduce the social risk.

The dearth of institutional, social, and political priorities at home

At least five factors obstructed migrants’ COVID-time social protection at home: the absence of a systematic database of returnees, inadequate preparedness, inability to provide emergency support services, non-coordination among different agencies, and pre-existing gaps in the reintegration approach.

Systematically accumulated return migration data is still unavailable in Bangladesh. Thus, identifying and bringing vulnerable migrants under support services is often cumbersome and untenable. The MoEWOE had to rely on others, i.e. the immigration authority and the CSOs, to trace migrants and provide assistance to the returnees.

Bangladesh has yet to develop a standard crisis preparedness policy for migrants. Ineffective monitoring of the health and overall wellbeing of the returnee migrants, insufficient COVID testing services, and poor quarantine facilities are common threads throughout migrants’ stories. That the country has no emergency support framework for migrants was demonstrated during previous crises. After the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, Bangladesh relied on the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for the repatriation of stranded Bangladeshis from war-torn Libya (IOM News, 2011). Recently, it sought the assistance of neighboring India to bring back Bangladeshis from Ukraine after the country encountered a Russian invasion (Hindustan Times, 2022).

Despite having a solid legal base, Bangladesh's National Social Protection Strategy does not contain any provision for migrant workers. The country also failed to provide highly required emergency assistance in cash or kind to migrants hard-hit by the pandemic. In effect, the state often endorses the community's perception of migrants as the fortunate section of society and capable of taking care of themselves. As opined by the CSOs, this might be a reason why stimulus packages for migrants and their families arrived late. After sustained advocacy by CSOs, the government allocated BDT200 crores (US$2.4 million) from the Wage Earners’ Welfare Fund created from the compulsory conscription of the outgoing migrants. The newly introduced insurance schemes were no use for the laid-off and deported migrants, as they only cover death and disability.

The lack of harmonization of activities among concerned Ministries and authorities appears to be a fundamental flaw in Bangladesh's migrant support services (IOM, 2020b). Coordination between MoEWOE, the civil aviation authority, the immigration authority, and the Ministry of Health was rarely observed in addressing the issues of migrants’ contact tracing, quarantine, vaccination, and remigration. Non-governmental interventions were also sporadic, overlapping, and donor dependent.

Over the decades, ‘reintegration’ received scant attention from policymakers compared to ‘migration,’ due to the latter's contribution to national development. It is only more recently that the Bangladeshi government has initiated a returnee reintegration policy for migrants, taking lessons from the pandemic and also curbing the irregular migration to the West. The COVID-19 situation saw hastily made reintegration plans for returnees that proved ineffective in many ways. PKB was late in offering recovery packages because of human resource constraints. Moreover, the terms and conditions of the loans and bureaucratic inefficiency made the effort unwieldy (Ansar et al., 2021).

To sum up, the nature and scope of workers’ formal social protection were extended to some extent during the pandemic. Nevertheless, the understanding and commitment to adopt an ‘overall preparedness’ were largely missing in the context. To add to the woes of migrants, the informal social safety nets embedded in social relations and networks also proved unreliable and ineffective during the pandemic.

Gendered accessibility to protection

In a country like Bangladesh, women's socio-economic status is generally low, and migrant women are doubly vulnerable through being both a woman and a migrant. Therefore, formal social protection should be gender sensitive, considering women's limited access to information regarding migration support services. As the preceding section shows, the live-in Bangladeshi domestic workers had to rely on their employers for information and support, as they could rarely contact the missions abroad. The Kafala system allowed employers an unchallenged authority over employees, further shrinking the latter's protection opportunities. Though the ‘employers’ pay model’ in some CoDs contributed to the reduced cost of women's migration, it provides little safeguard against pre-existing vulnerabilities to being abused and exploited.

As elaborated above, very few formal support services are, in effect, available for men and women at CoDs. The support services of Bangladesh missions were, in most cases, either unavailable or inaccessible, particularly to women domestic workers. Women usually resort to the recruitment agents, as they find them their ‘guardians’ or ‘protectors.’ However, they proved to be rather detrimental to the safety and security of the migrant women, as they forced them to carry on the work with the same or another employer in precarious work conditions. The Bangladeshi CSOs had limited social and legal leverage to protect these women. As a CSO interviewee commented, “Migrant women's problems are much-reported and well-discussed now. Yet, very little has been done to eradicate the root causes of women's social risk and vulnerability at CoDs.”

In effect, the paucity of a well-designed crisis recovery policy prioritizing the specific needs of women migrants was on full display during the pandemic. The positioning of Bangladeshi women workers at the bottom of the social order makes them incapable of challenging the status quo. As a result, they become the first to drop out of the support system in an emergency, as was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Towards a comprehensive social protection system

Highlighting the plights of Bangladeshi migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic, the article has uncovered how and why the much-needed protections of workers are affected during a crisis. As demonstrated, despite numerous initiatives and a plethora of rules, laws, and organizations, Bangladeshi migrant workers mostly remained unprotected and mistreated throughout the pandemic. Formal social protection was unavailable, inadequate, and inaccessible during the pandemic. Mobility restrictions, exclusion from stimulus packages, wage theft, arbitrary dismissal from jobs, and forced deportation were common experiences amongst stranded migrants. Upon return, returnees had to withstand mistreatment at the airport and quarantine centers and social stigma and rejection in their native villages. Prolonged uncertainty and unemployment impacted the socio-economic status of migrants and their households. The absence of formal reintegration policies and discontinuation of informal but trusted family support added to their woes, aggravating their psycho-social wellbeing.

Digging deeper into the protection gaps, the Bangladesh case also illustrates the lack of institutional, social, and political understanding of the needs of migrants’ welfare. Whereas the Kafala system benefits employers with unfettered and inexplicable control over their employees, the non-existence of insurance coverage coupled with inadequate and inaccessible support services was found to be the major protection hindrances at CoDs. Similarly, the number crunch, information gaps, inadequate preparedness and immediate support services, and insufficient coordination between stakeholders affected returnees’ access to recovery and support services. Above all, well-designed crisis response and recovery plans prioritizing the gender-specific needs of the migrants were absent during the pandemic.

The importance of the aforementioned findings and analysis lies in their highlighting of the importance of adopting an inclusive, formalized, and win-win labor arrangement for the future. The quest for protection in a crisis will remain elusive if the system does not acknowledge this gap. The study broadly proposes a five-point recommendation to move the discussion forward.

First, an all-encompassing social protection system with well-crafted crisis response and recovery policy is needed. Variations in the needs, abilities, requirements, and expectations of migrant workers across the region call for policies to ensure a coordinated response in times of crisis. Necessary resources—both financial and human—should be allocated for emergency support provisions and crisis preparedness. In addition, migrants’ insurance schemes should be expanded to cover the risks associated with crisis, such as the pandemic.

Second, the absence of a systematic database combining relevant information on existing and returnee migrants was felt more than ever. Such a comprehensive database can assist policymakers and agencies in developing successful strategies and appropriate actions. Therefore, in addition to expanding the database of current migrants, a system should be in place to include returnee migrants’ data in national migration statistics.

Third, CoDs should categorically address the labor migrants’ welfare provisions in normal and crisis times and abolish discriminatory laws. Migrants’ access to information, health care, and support services at CoDs should be prioritized. All bilateral, regional, and global processes and instruments need to be leveraged to ensure the uninterrupted protection of migrants at CoDs.

Fourth, the role of gender and the plight of women migrants have never been as prevalent following the COVID-19 pandemic. A nuanced understanding of gendered social protection is required for policy formulation and negotiation at the bilateral and multilateral forums to safeguard women's position at CoDs and home. Equally important is the inclusion of migrants’ left-behind family members.

Last but not least, it is critical to move away from remittance-based labor migration policies and ensure a rights-based approach to migration. Policies and practices need to be in place to pursue quality in migration over quantity.