The COVID-19 pandemic has already landed a blow on the global economy, pushing it to the brink of another great recession in modern human history. The muzzy world economy has also jolted Bangladesh, which was being seen as ‘one of the Asian tigers’ due to its recent robust economic growth. The would-be middle income nation, according to World Bank data, is one of the South Asian countries to be subject to a substantial down growth rate by 2.7 per cent.
This country is largely reliant on remittance for its economic survival as well as on the global labour market for employment of its mammoth workforce. The pandemic has also taken a huge toll on the labour market as well since many of the hosting countries have started sending back migrant workers.
The Middle Eastern countries, one of the major destinations for overseas employment of Bangladesh nationals, sent back around 29,000 Bangladeshi expatriate workers in just two weeks of March 2020. As many as 666,000 migrant workers returned between January and March this year and more than two million migrant workers from global job market may be deported in the coming days. Still, some of the destination countries are putting pressure on Bangladesh government to take back its workers.
Job seekers will then look for informal channels for employment that will open up the windows of labour trafficking as we always saw in the past. Human traffickers will easily cash in the opportunity of people’s joblessness.
So it can be assumed that due to job cut and upcoming economic recession in the post COVID-19 period, more expat workers may come back. On the other hand, according to the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) on 24 June 2020, more than 16 million people have been unemployed due to the COVID-19. As a result, the number of people who live below poverty line will increase significantly.
The global employment scenario is quite worse than that of Bangladesh. Back in April, the International Labour Organization warned that the COVID-19 pandemic ‘is expected to wipe out 6.7 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020 - equivalent to 195 million full-time workers, which far exceeds the effects of the 2008-09 financial crisis.’
The concern is what will be the possible ways for people to find employment. A country like Bangladesh will hardly be able to create job opportunities overnight. So, the choice of its people may be labour migration. There will be little opportunity for new employment abroad as destination countries are also struggling with economic crisis. Job seekers will then look for informal channels for employment that will open up the windows of labour trafficking as we always saw in the past. Human traffickers will easily cash in the opportunity of people’s joblessness.
Right now the most of the countries are on the verge of financial crisis so it can be anticipated that on the post COVID period the labour forces will be more vulnerable than ever.
The financial chaos boosts the demand side of human trafficking. Significant rise of human trafficking was also observed during the past global economic crises. The 2008-2009 financial catastrophe, as predicted by the International Labor Organization (ILO), caused unemployment for 113 million in 2009 in Asia alone that gave a sharp rise in the graph of human trafficking across the world.
The Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC) shows consistent rise of labour trafficking. The data hub said the percentage of male trafficking victims was 13 per cent in 2007 that rose to 20 percent in 2009 and 29 percent in 2010.
ILO estimated that during the economic fallout 12.3 million adults and children fell victim of forced labour and sexual servitude while 1.39 million were victims of sex trafficking both at the national and transnational levels.
The State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report-2009 stated that rising unemployment led to greater trafficking vulnerabilities. Similarly in the report of UN’s office on drugs and crime published in 2009 explained that the economic crisis pushed the underground business with increased use of forced, cheap and child labour which can be considered as modern day slavery. Right now the most of the countries are on the verge of financial crisis so it can be anticipated that on the post COVID period the labour forces will be more vulnerable than ever.
To have a check against further decline in human rights violations, labour exploitations, modern day slavery and most importantly labour trafficking, national and international authorities as well as experts may take into account the upcoming crisis, learning from the past.