No way back: Millions of migrant workers face Christmas stranded abroad

Having gone two-and-a-half years without seeing her family, Zimbabwean hairdresser Tracy Kunembiri spent months planning a trip home from South Africa for Christmas – finally a chance for her two young children to meet their grandmother.

Then the Omicron variant emerged and scuppered the 26-year-old’s plans, leaving her among the ranks of millions of migrant workers globally who have been stuck abroad since the pandemic started. Many have no idea of when, or how, they will next make it home.

Ms Kunembiri cannot afford to go back to Zimbabwe because she would have to pay $60 (£45) for a PCR test and quarantine for 10 days.

While she misses home, her main concern is that her children do not have identity documents or birth certificates – which she had been hoping to obtain if she made it home this Christmas – and therefore they might not be able to start school as planned next year.

“I am overwhelmed because we had started preparing to go home. My mind was already home,” she told The Independent by phone from Durban. “I am worried about the kids,” added Ms Kunembiri, whose name has been changed.

There are an estimated 169 million migrant workers worldwide, making up about one in 20 of the global workforce, according to the UN. They often go unnoticed despite doing vital jobs in various sectors ranging from healthcare and sanitation to agriculture and manufacturing.

Yet this work is often informal, precarious and poorly paid – not to mention dirty and dangerous – while many migrants are undocumented and toil in the shadow economy with little to no state support, safety net, or recourse if they are mistreated.

“Current migration management systems are broken and are explicitly designed … to exploit migrant workers,” said Neha Misra, a representative of the Solidarity Centre, a US-based nonprofit.

“Governments have created a disposable class of workers,” she added. “That is, migrants who are essential to our economies at all times – and especially in times of crisis – but who are also deemed unworthy of any societal protections or safeguards.”

And so as the pandemic unfolded last year, migrant workers were among those hit hardest.

Countless migrants around the world were fired without any warning and denied wages owed to them or furloughed without pay for months on end, leaving them unable to pay off debts to recruitment agencies and employers or send remittances home to relatives who rely on the money to survive.

Other migrant workers kept their jobs but found their movement restricted and freedom curtailed – leaving many in an uncertain and interminable state of limbo.

As of July this year, travel restrictions, border closures, and lockdown measures to curb the spread of Covid had left about 2.75 million migrant workers worldwide stranded abroad and unable to go home, the latest available data from the UN’s migration agency (IOM) shows.

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One of them, Indian migrant Arif, was finishing a day’s work at a perfume factory in Dubai in May 2020 when India started a major operation to fly its citizens home from 95 countries.

But the 37-year-old could not afford a plane ticket and now does not know when he will next see his family, having been away from Alappuzha in Kerala state since August 2019.

The risk of losing his job and a secure income is just too high, he told The Independent.

“So many people have been unemployed during this (pandemic) time,” Arif, who only gave his first name, said by phone from Dubai.

“What if my employer refused to take me back to work if I went home,” he added. “There is no job security here.”

Nevertheless, Arif is among the more fortunate of the migrant workers marooned worldwide.

In countries ranging from Hungary and Malaysia to Singapore and Saudi Arabia, migrants have been scapegoated as “virus carriers” and subjected to hatred, racism and violence, rounded up and put into quarantine, or deported against their will, among other abuses.

Their health is also at risk, a factor that campaigners say is oft-overlooked despite the fact many migrant workers live and work in close proximity with no protective gear.

A study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in October 2020 found that migrants were twice as likely as local workers to get Covid due to factors including poverty, overcrowded accommodation, and jobs where social distancing is difficult.

In Singapore, for example, migrants accounted for more than 95 per cent of the country’s Covid cases as of June last year, while in Saudi Arabia, this figure was about 75 per cent as of May 2020.

However, migrant workers are often unable to access state services such as healthcare, not to mention social security allowances, unemployment payments, or other benefits.

These factors have left migrant workers at greater risk of “falling prey to criminals” and being exploited or trafficked, according to Monica Goracci, director of the migration management department at the IOM.

The UN agency said it had received many requests to help stranded migrants throughout the pandemic, and had found innovative ways to assist people despite various challenges.

Virtual counselling and hotlines, social media campaigns, financial support and fundraising to help get people home were but a few of the approaches the IOM said it had employed. The UN marked International Migrants Day on 18 December, aiming to raise awareness about the challenges and difficulties of global migration.

Yet not all migrant workers currently abroad are down and out or desperate to return home.

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“I do not like it back in Bangladesh, there is no work and nothing to earn,” said Alam, a Bangladeshi construction worker in Singapore who has not been home since 2019.

While most of the 300,000 migrants in Singapore are living under lockdown restrictions that essentially allow them only to go between work and their dorms – a small proportion are entitled to breaks outside – Alam said he did not mind as long as he could earn a living.

“I want to stay in Singapore permanently as I have got an income,” added Alam, who only gave his first name.

Elsewhere in the affluent city-state, Filipina domestic worker Ma Catherine Campenero said she was upset to be missing Christmas with her family yet could not afford to fly home.

Ms Campenero – who has not gone back to the Philippines since 2018 – missed her mother’s funeral in July and hopes to visit next year depending on the pandemic and quarantine rules.

“Omicron is worrying,” she told The Independent by phone. “If it spreads in Singapore and around the world it makes it much harder for me to go home again.”

In the meantime, the festive season will be a tough one for her as many people worldwide return home or get together with their families to celebrate Christmas and the New Year.

“Christmas in the Philippines is a big deal, it’s the happiest month of the year with people getting together,” Ms Campenero said.

“I miss … spending it with my family back home, but I can call them so it makes it seem like I am there even though I am away.”

With reporting by Farai Shawn Matiashe in South Africa, Alisha Rahaman Sarkar in India, and Adam Hancock in Singapore