IOM World Migration Report 2020
The World Migration Report is the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) flagship publication series. What does its latest edition tell us about how the world is migrating? What does it mean for migration to, from, and within India? In this December Redux edition of Gotta Keep On Movin’, the IMN Team answers these questions.
The WMR is divided into two parts — while the first presents latest and up-to-date data on migration stocks and flows across the world, the second deep-dives into complex emerging issues in the world of migration.
What do the numbers tell us?
- There were 272 million international migrants in 2019, comprising 3.5% of world population. About 164 million of these were migrant workers while 25.9 million were refugees. 41.3 million were estimated as Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and 3.9 million stateless (of which 1.5 million were in Bangladesh and Myanmar). 52% were male while 48% were female.
- India was the largest country of origin (17.5m), followed by Mexico (11.8m) and China (10.7m). The United States of America was the largest destination country, hosting 50.7 million migrants. North America and Europe together accounted for roughly 52% of international migrants (141m).
WATCH: IOM presents migration data across the major world regions
What are the emerging issues of the migration world?
A recurring theme noted across all the IOM WM Reports is the increasing polarisation and politicisation of migration, worldwide. In such an atmosphere, it therefore becomes doubly important to acknowledge the many contributions that migrants make to their host and origin societies.
The McKinsey 2016 People on the Move report estimates that international migrants contribute 9% of Global GDP. Diasporas also enrich the social and cultural fabric in source and destination areas, contributing to art, literature, sports, scholarship, culinary diversity, and cinema. Studies also show that migrants (especially in the USA which is the largest destination country) are twice as likely to be entrepreneurs than natives. Similar trends have been noted in Uganda, host to a an extensive refugee population.
Read about the Salah Effect: How Mo Salah’s goals have led to a drop in hate crimes and xenophobia among Liverpool football fans.
This section of the WMR owes a great deal to the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX). MIPEX categories are structured into the report’s understanding of what constitutes integration. While different countries follow different models of adaptation for migrants, integration can be understood as a middle ground between assimilation (requiring the most adaptation from the migrant) and multiculturalism (requiring the most adaptation by the host society). While multiculturalism has many takers in today’s world, the WMR points out that it has also been blamed for the rise in populist anti-immigrant rhetoric. The IMN Team is currently in the process of adding India to the MIPEX 2019 Index as well.
Labour market access, education, language facilities, naturalisation, and family reunion are key areas through which migrant lives can be improved and better social cohesion achieved. The role played by local actors and institutions as well as social media and technology is also important. For example: the Swiss video game Cloud Chaser, designed to help the viewer experience the hardships and difficulties of migration experiences for better sensitisation to immigrants.
WATCH: What is MIPEX?
Migration and health share a complicated relationship with different outcomes observed in different places. Some display the Healthy Migrant Effect which is an empirically observed mortality advantage that migrants from some source regions have, despite their socio-economic disadvantages. However, others, especially irregular migrants, do not have access to health facilities. IMN’s IMPEX analysis demonstrates that even internal migrants who cross state borders have difficulty accessing state government services in India. Barriers of culture and language make the situation tougher for host countries as well. The WMR also talks about ‘sanctuary cities’ which prioritise human rights, health and equity approaches rather than the migration status of the individual requiring health services.
READ: Sri Lanka launches seminal National Migration Health Policy
READ: The myth that migrants spread diseases
Child migration and child suffering in particular has displayed a “peculiarly newsworthy and compelling appeal”. The image of three year old Aylan Kurdi’s body washed up on the Mediterranean shore struck a chord worldwide. Today, an estimated 31 million children migrate internationally. Double that number migrated within India according to the 2011 Census. Inadequate data around children who migrate is a problem worldwide. For child migrants, education, guardianship, and social inclusion are the key areas that make a difference. IMN’s IMPEX analysis also highlights the area of child rights and how little destination states in India have done for even internal migrants.
WATCH: The vulnerabilities of Rohingya children migrating alone
More and more people are set to become climate migrants in the 21st century. Many are likely to be refugees fleeing ecological disaster. In India, the Kerala floods of 2018, the annual cyclones in the Bay of Bengal affecting Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Bengal all represent a pattern of climate variation that is increasingly affecting human mobility.
The relationship between climate change and migration is by no means linear. In many parts of the world, for example the Himalayas, circular migration in response to annual weather patterns is a common part of nomadic existence. Migration is an adaptive response that is expected to accelerate in the face of changes in climate that are impossible to adapt to in situ.
Migration and Climate Change Crisis Out of Africa
New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, travels from France to Niger, following the trail of migrants and unraveling how climate change is driving people to leave their homes.
Although the New York Declaration of 2016 had already set the wheels in motion, global migration governance underwent a revolutionary change with the adoption of the twin Global Compacts by the United Nations General Assembly — one on Refugees and one for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration.
Given the transnational nature of migration, effective change can occur only by different countries coming together to agree on a common framework. Although the GCM is not legally binding, its adoption does signal a change in international migration governance. The GCM has a comprehensive set of 23 objectives covering issues as diverse as migration drivers, child rights, health, and the paucity of global migration data. It also institutes an implementation plan and a follow up review mechanism, complementing the GCR with a 360 degree view on migration.
The Compacts’ main blind spot, as identified in the WMR as well, is that it continues to speak in terms of a migration binary — forced vs voluntary. It does not take into account mixed motivations particularly secondary movements which are facilitated by geography and technology. The Rohingya refugees in India are a good example of a community caught somewhere between the GCR and the GCM. Although a persecuted group, many migrated voluntarily from Bangladesh to a third country (India) after fleeing Myanmar. Mixed flows of refugees from countries of first asylum to third countries is now becoming a large scale phenomenon which both the Compacts do not adequately address.
What is the future for migration in India?
India features constantly in the IOM’s World Migration Report 2020. As a source, it provides the largest number of international migrants. As a destination, it hosts an extensive number of immigrants and refugees. Census data tells us that India has more internal migrants (450 million) than any other country. In fact, the WMR 2020, itself, is co-edited by an Indian scholar of migration, and a migrant himself, Dr. Binod Khadria of Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The central role that India plays in the international story of migration is only expected to grow in the 21st century and it is crucial that the country is able to capitalise on its close relationship with migration. In the coming months, we hope to bring you more stories from the world of migration. Till then, do consider supporting our work by donating.
