Migrant Women from West Bengal -- Livelihoods, Vulnerability, Ill-Being and Well
Being: Some Perspectives from the Field
Neela Mukherjee (e mail: neelamukherjee@vsnl.com)
Development Tracks in Research, Training & Consultancy
Acknowledgement: The field research related to this paper was partly funded by the
Institute of Development Studies at Sussex, Brighton, U.K. for review of participatory
work related to `consultation with the poor’ to inform the World Development Report
2000/1 on poverty and development (Brock:1999) and later updated through support
from Development Tracks in Research, Training & Consultancy plc (2001 & 2004). The
present paper is a revised version of the note published in the “perspectives” section of
the Economic and Political Weekly (2001).
Migration is a world wide phenomenon and people migrate both nationally and
internationally. Such migration from different age-groups, involves both women and
men, who work away from home either on a daily basis, periodically or for a single
period of a few months or few years and some also tend to stay permanently in towns and
cities and suburban areas. Important economic factors explaining migration are the
economic disparities between urban and rural areas, landlessness and shortage of
agricultural land, lack of off-farm employment in rural areas and demand for unskilled
cheap labour in the manufacturing and the service sector (Smith: 1996; Tamara Jacka:
www.google.com;). Other household factors influencing migration can be escaping from
domestic violence, social problems and destitution (also see www.livelihoods.org ). In
India there is large scale migration from rural to urban areas comparable to many other
countries such as China, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia,
Malaysia and many others.
Over the past decade, one crucial characteristic of today’s national and international
migration is that of steady increase in the number of migrant women around the world
due to the impact of global economic restructuring, escalating poverty, and violent
conflict. The International Organization for Migration estimates that there are over
50 million women in migration worldwide. Such migration by women, in general, not
only provides an opportunity for bettering livelihoods, income, status and thrift but also
helps in breaking of inter- caste and gender bonds (Srinivasan:1997). Due to autonomy in
the job, social support groups, spatial and time factors that women migrants in the urban
areas are able to weaken the bonds of dependence on men. However, it has also been
researched through Montana’s “Migrant and Seasonal Farm worker Rural.Domestic
Violence Awareness Project” that migrant women are a particularly isolated, vulnerable
and underserved population. The mobile lifestyle of migrant women presents unique
barriers to accessing community services. Special efforts are needed to ensure that
battered migrant women have optimal access to community resources.
In this paper the issue of migrant women from West Bengal to Delhi has been discussed
based on interactive sessions with such groups. Only those migrant women who are
elderly and have migrated from West Bengal to Delhi without their families constitute the
sample group for this paper. Such women have migrated helped by other women and not
through any formal or informal agencies. The paper shows how such migrant women
struggle hard to cope with migration and find a pathway out of poverty. The women are
mostly successful in supporting their families from a distance and overseeing the well
being of the family members at the cost of their own ill being and hard work, though the
sense of own achievement cannot be under-rated. In absence of any appropriate
institutional support for such migrant women, lack of access to resources, vulnerabilities,
basic entitlements such as ration cards and health facilities and discrimination and
exclusion as migrants through are definite issues to reckon with.
A visit to the “jhuggi-jhopris” (slums) of metropolitan cities like Delhi makes it amply
clear that poor women from landless households of West Bengal are migrating in large
numbers in search of secured livelihoods. In this context one main issue is why these
poor women are forced to migrate leaving their near and dear ones behind. What kind of
situation they are faced with, which forces them to take such hard decisions? How do
they adjust to such drastic changes in their circumstances? How do they cope with the
hard realities of migrating to distant places? Does migration enhance their social position
and augment their well being? These and other questions were explored through
interactive sessions with 60 such women migrants in Alaknanda slum located in south
Delhi. Such sessions based on `listening to the poor’ threw up many issues on different
aspects of their “landlessness”, vulnerabilities, in-secured livelihoods, shifts in women’s
responsibilities, coping strategies and other ground realities back in the State of West
Bengal. The proportion of the problem could be gazed when the participant women
mentioned that for each migrant woman there were four others waiting to migrate. Such
migrants were from the districts of West Bengal such as Nadia, Hooghly, Burdwan,
Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Midnapore, districts of 24 Parganas and others.
Many of these migrant women have left their families behind and have taken the hard
decision of seeking livelihoods in alien surroundings and culture of posh Delhi and
surrounding areas. This noticeable phenomenon is an indicator of the ground-reality in
West Bengal. Despite fifty years of development –oriented plans and programmes not
much has changed in the lives of Bengal women from landless households. As field
evidence (DFID: 2002) shows there is systemic uncertainty and vulnerability of
livelihoods and food insecurity faced by poor women from many parts, especially those
from rural and peri-urban Bengal. The State record on poverty alleviation vis-a vis many
other Indian States is not that encouraging. As per published data, the state of West
Bengal can be considered as positioned in middle order as far as ranking of socioeconomic indicators for the major states are concerned. With a rank of 9th in head count
index of poverty, the state of West Bengal has 10th position in terms of growth of state
domestic product, 11th in terms of infant mortality ratio and 7th for female literacy
amongst 16 states of India - . Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal
Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan,
Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh..
For interactive sessions, participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods (for details see
Mukherjee:2002) like semi-structured interviews, narratives, seasonal calendars etc. were
applied in-situ both in Delhi and back in selected Bengal villages. Interactive sessions
with landless women in rural and peri-urban areas included selected Districts of West
Bengal namely Midnapore, 24 parganas districts, Purulia and Hooghly for exploring
livelihood profiles of poor women from landless households.
In the Alaknanda slum in South Delhi (this slum has since been demolished in 2002,
however new slums have cropped up in nearby areas), group interviews were conducted
with 60 women migrants from Bengal (and later followed up with individual interviews
and case studies) to learn about their perspectives on lives and livelihoods, their coping
strategies, feelings of wellbeing and ill being. Women participants mainly from rural and
peri-urban areas explained that they took the hard decision to migrate after facing acute
vulnerability of livelihoods. Two pictures of acute vulnerability of livelihoods for poor
women have been placed below, one being the `peri-urban’ picture while the other being
the `rural’ picture from remote villages. These pictures constructed by the poor landless
women help in conceptualizing the kind of situation back in Bengal.
The peri-urban picture
The following `peri-urban’ picture has been constructed based on narration by the women
participants from the Alaknanda slum of south Delhi. Many poor women in the periurban areas of Bengal struggled to cope with shifts in labour markets where they were
engaged in cottage/home industries for saree/lungi weaving. Their skills in weaving
coarse cloth suffered a jolt due to increased competition from machine-made items in the
cloth mills. Many poor women and men lost their livelihoods related to saree/lungi
weaving. With coarse hand spun sarees getting replaced by mill made sarees such means
of livelihood were adversely affected.
To cope with such situation the men switched to plying of rickshaws and vans at the local
level or became petty traders in food items, fruits, vegetables etc. For poor women in
peri-urban areas, the options in terms of livelihoods were grossly limited. There were
very few opportunities for women in local beedi-making and other gainful activities.
When their skills became irrelevant with closing of many hand weaving units they tried
to cope by eating less, skipping meals and borrowing from different sources. They
desperately looked for other sources of income earning activities without much success.
Sometimes some of their family members could get jobs for 10 to 15 days while at other
times there was a lot of uncertainty. In absence of viable options it almost reached a crisis
point and many women decided to follow the example of one or two migrant families.
When other migrants visited home they requested them to take them to Delhi where
getting jobs was relatively easy. They were mentally prepared to undergo a lot of
discomfort and difficulties, which accompanied such migration. They were prepared to
take risk in alien lands so as to make a living for their families.
The `rural’ picture
So how does the `rural’ picture compare? In the rural areas of West Bengal, the situation
for most landless women is still worse. Though many such landless families received
some "khas" land under the land reform programme of the West Bengal Government not
much happened in terms of reduction in chronic seasonal vulnerabilities in livelihood and
food. The livelihood-food calendars from the different villages under study indicate that
such `seasonality’ is considerably pronounced for landless women. There are clear
hunger periods in the system together with endemic poverty. For the majority of landless
poor households the struggle for existence continues unabated. Seasonality patterns in
livelihood calendars from two villages of Midnapore as given in Table 1 illustrate such
crisis situation. Table 1 indicates seasonality factor in the livelihoods of poor women
groups, mostly landless women in two villages, Benagariya and Mulbandh, located in
Midnapore district of West Bengal. Villages Benagariya (with 90 households, 30 womenheaded households) and Mulbandh (with 80 households, 12 women-headed households)
are both interior villages off the metal road. There is acute water shortage in both the
villages. The women of village Mulbandh are relatively organized as a group as
compared to the women in village Benagariya. Faced with acute livelihood crisis,
increased group mobility has helped them to access better quality natural resources. The
table shows how local opportunities seized by women of Mulbandh in the agricultural off
-season have helped them to tide over such deficit periods, though endemic poverty
continues to exist. This is amply demonstrated especially during the periods May-June
and August-April. The livelihood situation for the landless women in village Benagariya
is most vulnerable and grim.
Table 1
Food-Livelihood Calendar & Rural Landless Women – Villages Benagariya and Mulbandh
Month
“BaisakhJyaistha” (mid
April to midJune)
Livelihoods, food availability and vulnerabilities
Village Benageriya -For most women, agriculture or other jobs are
not available. However, few married women go with their husband to
harvest paddy for 8 days. Between 2 to 4 days of work is available for
few women who assist men in earthwork. Women are paid at the rate
of Rs. 10 per day plus a bowl of puff rice. Most women stitch sal
leaves for making plates and also collect few bags of dry leaves/twigs
for selling. On many days the poor families are forced to reduce food
intake and go empty stomach.
Village Mulbandh -Only 5 to 8 days of work available for harvesting
“Boro” paddy for which they get Rs. 30 /- per day. The women sell
dry twigs and leaves from the forest. Many women prepare chura
from paddy for better-off farmers in other localities and receive paddy
in return. In Baisakh, they borrow 60 to 70 kgs of rice from better-off
farmers for their own consumption and repay it by working for them.
“Ashar-Srabon”
(mid June to
mid-August)
Village Benageriya -The women get transplantation work for 10-12
days at a daily wage of Rs. 21/- plus some puff rice, for which they
need to travel far. In some years some forest-related work is also
available under Joint Forest Management. Some women are engaged
in weeding out grass/ weeds on agricultural land for 2-10 days at a
daily wage of Rs.21/- plus a bowl of puff rice. With their income they
are able to buy vegetables and rice and also collect small sized snails
to eat.
Village Mulbandh- The women go to near-by villages and prepare
chura from paddy for better-off farmers and receive paddy in return.
Some also work in farmers’ homes. Some transplantation work is
available during these months for 8 to 10 days for which they get Rs.
25 and 2 seers of puff rice per day. Another activity undertaken by
women as a group is visiting water bodies/pond at a distance and
collecting snails and fish for selling them in near-by market. The food
position of landless poor households is relatively better during this
month.
“Bhadro-AswinKartickAgrahyanPoush-Magh”
(mid-August to
mid-February)
Village Benageriya -Agricultural work is not available for all women.
Some women collect and sell leaves of atandi to farmers who use
them as fuel and pay Rs.5 for one bundle of leaves. Few women get 2
to 10 days work related to the harvesting of khudi paddy and
thrashing of paddy, though done mainly by men. Some work related
to rice husking and winnowing is available for 2 to 4 women. Some
women try to survive on money earned by men and also draw upon
the savings done during Ashar. They try to keep some cash for
medical treatment since illness is rampant during monsoon. Others
survive by eating less. For supplementing food, they also try to catch
some fish from the farmlands once the rainwater recedes. The survival
strategy is one of beg and borrow from people. Survival is harsh
Village Mulbandh-The women do weeding for which they get Rs. 25
per day plus the puff rice as earlier. This work is available for 2 to 4
days. They continue with their activity of collecting fish and snails
and selling them. Some of them collect dry twigs and leaves and sell
them while other women go to near-by lakes and ponds and catch fish
and snails to sell them. The livelihood from preparing “chura” lasts
them until “Poush” and “Agrahyan”. Such diverse jobs help women to
earn a living.
“PhalgunChaitra” (midFebruary to midApril)
Village Benageriya – The agricultural work gets over by Magh and
Poush because most farmers grow one crop. The women go to the
forest and collect fuel and sell them at Re 1 /- per bag, by which they
earn around Rs.5 /- per day. In absence of work opportunities the food
situation is grim.
Village Mulbandh- The women group visit a distant pond in
tempo/lorry, collect and bring small snails and sell them at Rs. 3 a kg.
Sometimes they are able to gather around 25 kg, of snails, a small
portion of which also becomes food for them. The food situation
improves over the earlier period.
Note: Seasonalities as described by the landless women during field interactions in
villages Benagariya and Mulbandh, Midnapore, West Bengal.
Migration to Delhi
The depressed job markets at the local level, structural changes in the manufacturing
sector in favour of labour reducing technologies, gradual marginalisation of the informal
sector and absence of official policies and strategies to counteract marginalisation of
landless households left the poor women with no options but to migrate to affluent cities
like Delhi in search of livelihoods. They were informed that work opportunities existed in
the household sector of Delhi and surrounding areas and their traditional skills of cooking
and other household activities would come handy. A study by Jagori on “Rights and
Vulnerabilities” documents migrant women's experiences in living in the slums of Delhi
and the processes of migration to the city. It was through informal networks that many of
them found a place to live and found work. With their low-end skills such women got
employed in the household sector as maids, cooks and ayahs, some part-time and some
full time. Some of them also found limited opportunity for nursing the sick and the aged,
mainly in the household sector. (Also see Boxes 1, 2, 3 and 4 on some migrant women’s
experience.). The household sector as a part of the informal sector absorbed and is still
absorbing most of the women migrants based on high demand for their services. Jagori’s
study on “Rights and Vulnerabilities” in Delhi slums documents the fact that women
migrants are important economic agents in terms of gaining livelihoods, and it is their
labour in various segments of the unorganised sector that contributes to the growth of the
city and national income, all of which often go unrecognised.
Box 1 - Rani’s story
Rani is about 60 years old and always with a smile. She decided to migrate from her
home in Bankura to overcome abysmal poverty conditions in her household. She had
come to know that there were household jobs for women in Delhi with good pay. She left
her children and her husband at home and came to Delhi. Back home her elder daughter
was made responsible for managing the household. In Delhi she got a full time job as a
maid looking after a sick and elderly woman and felt empowered and was able to
negotiate a good pay. She kept contact with her family through phone in a shop in her
locality but could never visit home form Delhi. She regularly sent money to her family
and sometimes to other relatives. She was able to get her daughters married. On a pay rise
she decided to go to another town from Delhi, which was closer to her home and take
care of an elderly woman. This has helped her to visit her home more frequently and her
daughter comes to carry out her work. She takes care of an elderly lady and feels happy at
the thought that her family back home can eat and live well as compared to the earlier
years and her grand children can attend school and have better clothes to wear She feels
empowered since she is held in high esteem in the family and amongst her neighbours.
There is a definite improvement in her status in her neighbourhood at home since she is
in a position to help others with money, if required.
Arrangements back at home
Before migrating, the women were required to make some arrangement for someone to
take over their household responsibility and work and also look after their family
members. Such job was entrusted to their respective daughters in law. For some, this also
meant getting their sons married. The women were fully aware that their husbands and
other men of their families could not accompany them since most jobs were available for
women such as jobs of maid, cook, nursing, taking care of babies etc. as compared to
those for men. Neither were their men mentally ready to cope with the discomfort and
stress associated with such migration. Husbands of many women were aged and some of
them were sick and were relatively immobile. Hence most women left their families
behind and migrated to Delhi where their mutual networking helped them to get jobs.
Box 2 - Nayantara’s life
Nayantara is about 65 years and is nice and gentle. She migrated from her home in
Nabadwip leaving behind her sick husband and grown up children. Before leaving for
Delhi she arranged son’s marriage so that her daughter-in-law could take charge of their
home. She has seen acute poverty throughout her life. As a child, she and her family had
the worst experience of the great Bengal famine when four of her family members (2
young brothers and 2 sisters) died due to starvation and hunger. Her husband was sick off
and on and the children could not be sent to school due to lack of money. Her husband
did wage labour and she used to weave threads for coarse cloth. When such activities
closed down and it was difficult to run the household with 4 children and husband’s
failing health she took a bold decision to migrate to Delhi in search of jobs. She came to
Delhi with other women whom she knew and started as full time household maid. She
could send money to her family almost every month and spent very little on herself. Even
when she had chest pain she decided to bear it with patience. With the money sent home
the she could pay back the loans taken by the family and also finance a rickshaw van for
her son-in-law who was out of work. The grandchildren could attend school because the
family conditions improved gradually. Her position and status improved in the family and
she could also get her daughters married and spent some money on her husband’s
treatment. Gradually, the elder son started a small food stall near a temple in Nabadwip,
which clicked well with increase in tourist inflow. Nayantara was requested by her son to
return to her home and help him to manage the food stall and petty cash. She returned for
good for joining her family once again and this time her family’s position had improved.
The social bindings and the social capital of mutual trust and goodwill amongst the
migrant women are immense. They support each other, often live as a group and also
help each other to get jobs. If some of them are temporarily out of jobs or take time to
find jobs the others provide shelter, food and mutual support. There are many work
opportunities in Delhi and the wage is also relatively high. For instance, for the same job
as domestic help the piecemeal rate is around Rs. 200/- in Delhi as compared to Rs. 50/in Calcutta.
Difficulties Faced by migrant women
Some difficulties mentioned by the participants were as follows. They tend to get worried
about their near and dear ones, husband, son/s and daughter/s, who live away from them
in their poverty-stricken surroundings. Mentally they can never rest at peace thinking
about the situation back home, what their family members eat and how they cope. In
absence of regular communication, they often remain worried about their family
members. As regards postal communication most of them cannot write or read and hence
are dependent on others for sending letters home.
Box 3 - Sandhya’s plight
Sandhya had no children and used to be beaten by her drunkard husband back home in
Dinajpur and after a point she gathered her courage and chose to migrate to Delhi and
leave her husband behind. After coming to Delhi she made friends with other women
with similar problems and severed relation with her husband. Staying all by herself in a
slum she had to fight many men from making advances. In Delhi she rented a hutment
and worked in different homes to make a living. She provided shelter to other women
who were like her. When she could save some money she thought of borrowing more
money and buying a hutment herself. She purchased a hutment and incurred some debt
and was paying back her loan on a monthly basis. This payment got disrupted with her
sudden illness when she had to cut down her workload and start spending money on her
treatment. This upset her plans for repayment of loans, which made her too worried and
she started losing her health. There was none to bail her out and repay her loan. She
managed to survive and overcome her illness and with great difficulty. She recovered and
again started repaying her staggered loan. Her struggle continues in Delhi since she can
do very little work given her health conditions and she is unable to make regular loan
repayments.
In a big city like Delhi, not always can one find as much work as necessary to earn a
decent living for themselves and their families back home. There is considerable
uncertainty in finding work. It is important to send money to their families on a monthly
basis but it often becomes difficult to do so. Suppose they require Rs. 2000/- a month for
their maintenance and remittance they may get work worth Rs. 500/-. Many of them also
need to pay back their family loans by sending regular installments. Health is another
aspect on which they need to spend considerably. It is a real struggle to meet the rising
health expenses.
Box 4 - The universal “ma”
The slum dwellers call her “ma”. No one knows her real name. She is also a woman
migrant from Birbhum aged around 65 years who came to Delhi and started living in the
slum. She had left her husband back for reasons, which she never disclosed. She works in
households to take care of sick people. Having a lot of patience she is good in her work
and gets opportunities with good pay. She has established relationship with other migrant
families in the slum. Her social bonding with many families is quite high and she gives
clothes to her adopted sons and daughters from the slum. They love and respect her a lot
and also seek solace and advice from her as and when needed. She has no home and lives
and eats with her adopted sons and daughters on a shared basis. Her caring for sick takes
her to different homes and the local people treat her with a lot of respect. In the process
she knows some important people in the slum and also outside slum. With her wide
network she also helps others to get jobs, ration cards etc. She also helps single migrant
women as and when required and has leadership qualities. Her age is advancing and she
has developed strong bonding with families who would support her in her old age..
Traveling home on a regular basis is constrained by the high rail fare, which gets hiked
periodically. Of late, the number of unreserved train compartments has been reduced
making travel more problematic. In the event of some emergency situation for e.g.
sickness of some family member, it becomes problematic for them to afford such home
travel costing around Rs. 1000/- per trip.
The ‘larger’ picture
From the above analysis one can construct a `larger’ picture, which at best is indicative of
five broad categories of poor women from landless households of Bengal (There can be
more categories, which can be explored through field studies).
-
Those living in relatively remote villages, which are resource-poor with very
limited options for securing livelihoods.
Those village women, which have organized themselves for accessing better
opportunities in and around their localities.
Those living in and around small towns and peri-urban/urban areas, who possess
some relevant skills for securing local sources of livelihoods.
Those living in villages and peri-urban/urban areas and waiting to migrate to
better-off lands.
Those who have broken the conventional barriers and have organized themselves
for inter-state and intra-state migration.
Some policy implications
At the source level, what are the policy implications of such on-going trends in migration
of landless women from Bengal imply? It broadly implies that the socio-economic
development process of Bengal has not been that broad-based for productive absorption
of the growing labour force and for creating sustainable livelihood opportunities for the
landless women and men. Such trend may apply to many other States of India but in this
case the landless migrant women population from Bengal is our focus. It is time for the
Bengal government to re-think on its poverty alleviation policies and strategies and be
more focused in its approach. It is time to consult, listen and learn from the poor women
about their problems and priorities and ways of resolving them. It is important to realise
that there is a range of poor groups with differential patterns of needs. Group –based
interventions for landless women and men in terms of creating livelihoods opportunities
can help. Employment guarantee scheme during the off-seasons can be handy for
supporting landless households. Self-help groups of landless women can be formed by
the panchayats and nurtured for productive activities. Though such women groups have
already been formed under the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna (SGSY) they have
yet to take off in most districts of West Bengal. Such groups have to be motivated,
trained and supported for entrepreneurial activities and linked to markets. By and large,
this has remained a complex task for the panchayats and development administration at
the district and block level. Though many women groups have been formed under SGSY
in different areas only a few of them have become eligible for the second round of bank
loans, the first round of loan being easily obtained. The social, economic and business
skill formation of such groups have not received much attention so far.
During fieldwork, it came to light that apart from the specific problems concerning
landless women, there were special problems of other poor groups. For example, those
women-headed households with small children were really constrained in terms of
livelihoods (they were also unable to migrate for jobs and did not possess enough
information). There were also special problems faced by adolescent girls as `grown up’
daughters, who were seen as burden on the poor families since getting them married was
a Herculean task due to various reasons, one being inability to pay dowry.
Given the on-going trends it is important to examine the possibility of some genderfocused strategies, which are focus-group-oriented and issue-specific. Few of them are
listed below. Lending support to poor women groups during vulnerable periods and
creating work opportunities with gender focus. It is important to realise the complex
relationship amongst poverty-gender-livelihood-seasonality and other related forces and
to ensure that landless women in particular require access to natural resource base and
other resources such as access to consumer loans and markets for selling their products
and services. Despite stress and strain the migrant women are contributing towards
household income and savings back home. They are remitting for their daughter’s
marriage, buying capital assets, paying back loans etc. It is important to recognise their
contribution and their role in society.
It is important to focus on women-headed households and their children. Many of them
cannot migrate even for short distances. They also have weak social networks.
Young/adolescent girls find it difficult to get married. If they have access to resources to
contribute towards their families their social position can improve leading to social
empowerment. It is one area where the institutional support is meager and there are no
schemes to take care of such groups.
At the end point of migration i.e. Delhi, the migrant women are denied all their human
rights such as basic access to food ration card as poor women and other privileges in
terms of subsidized housing, health facilities etc. Much needs to be done by the Delhi
Government for ensuring basic human rights, dignity and entitlements to the migrant
women. In this regard, the University of San Francisco School of Law’s report (as quoted
in Commission on Human Rights: 1998) states that such human rights abuse occurs in
their home and in employment. Many countries, including South Africa, the Philippines
and China, have established committees to attempt to solve the problems of abuse of
female migrant workers through legislation. For India there is the National Human Rights
Commission, for instance, which could be approached. However, the report rightly
concludes that mere legislation is not enough. Countries must take a holistic approach to
the problem, including social and legal solutions. Education is a major way to increase
awareness at various levels. In this regard, the World YWCA in 1997 (as quoted in
Commission on Human Rights: 1998) states that there needs to be co-operation between
health clinics, legal services and social services. For the education process to succeed
local health clinics, social service providers, legal services and communities must
collaborate to form a network accessible to women migrant workers. Countries also need
to develop outreach programmes for linking migrant worker and all the legal and social
services including monthly one-stop clinics/conferences
Concluding Remarks
The main issue is how to reduce seasonal vulnerabilities and endemic poverty of landless
households. The landless women have decided to migrate to cities like Delhi to hedge
against in-secured livelihoods. Though such decision has made many women migrants
`better-off’, self-reliant and provided them ability to overcome the pangs of hunger of
themselves and their families such migration has not taken place without its social cost.
The cost is there in terms of feelings of ill-being, physically distancing from families,
increased tensions for being away from their families and thoughts about the gloomy
future ahead. The cost is in terms of mental health and for some physical health as well.
When asked during interviews about their state of wellbeing and ill being, the migrant
women were of the view that they were unable to differentiate between ill being and
wellbeing. “There are bad days approaching our country. Our apprehension is that our
sons may not be able to find jobs even when they do their studies and become educated.
We find that work opportunities for men coming from families like ours are on the
decline. It is important that wages get increased for those working as wage labourers in
the factories. We keep working and live from day to day. We are able to eat and are able
to provide food to our families. We do not think we can ever be free and happy. It is only
in death that we can be in peace.” The sacrifice undertaken by the migrant women for
their families cannot be measured in money terms. It is a single-handed effort and
struggle by the migrant women to improve living conditions back home. The pathway out
of poverty chosen by the migrant woman is just not easy. However, it provides a
dignified option to her and her family to move ahead in life. It provides satisfaction to the
woman who sees her family achieve a better quality of life. It surely gives her a sense of
achievement and that does provides a sense of well being.
References
Brock, Karen (1999), “A Review of Participatory Work on Poverty and Illbeing –
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