Returning International Labor Migrants from Bangladesh: The Experience and Effects of Deportation

Abstract

This paper reports on the findings of a study of former or returned international migrant workers from Bangladesh. The analysis focuses on the economic situation and return experiences of those who had been deported or officially repatriated back to Bangladesh by the destination state. Data collection took place in 2003, in the Dhaka, Chittagong, and Sylhet regions of Bangladesh. In-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted with eighty-one returned workers, twenty-five of whom had been deported. Studyparticipants were recruited with the cooperation and assistance of the community-based organization WARBE—the Welfare Association of Repatriated Bangladeshi Employees. The data did not reveal a clear and statistically significant difference in the economic outcomes of the migration episode for the deported in comparison to the other returnees. Also of note was the high incidence, as reported by the informants, of returning to Bangladesh under conditions of duress; coercion and constraint guided not just the return experiences of the deported but were present throughout the sample. The findings point to the need for policies that target the reduction of such returns of duress for international migrant workers from developing countries.