Sr. Alosiya SJL
Image: Deepak Kumar
Migration is a universal Phenomenon. Migration is inevitable. It is an ongoing process. People move from place to place for various reasons. Economic, social, cultural and political factors play an important role in the decision to move. People migrate to establish a new permanent or semi-permanent residence, in search of work, livelihood or a better quality of life, as a result of marriage, to escape persecution or because of displacement.
Economic survey in 2016 reports that “an average of nine million people migrated between states every year for either education or work, according. That’s almost double the inter-state migration recorded in 2001–2011 and captured by Census 2011. The survey reveals that states like Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat attracted large numbers of migrants from the Hindi-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh.
According to census data, Southern states, especially Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, have shown the highest increase in migration population with 45.36 crore migrants in India, every third citizen of the country is a migrant. Of these 69% are women, and the majority have cited marriage or having migrated with their husbands as the reason for their translocation.
The Economic Survey of India 2016 -2017 revealed that Tamilnadu is the third largest state to receive internal migrants next to Maharashtra and Delhi according to Railway passenger Data based migration metric. 139 million Indians leave home and move to faraway places across the country in search of employment.
Common unanswerable queries and fears of Locals:
The Local’s cries are: “They have taken our opportunity, unemployment of the local, low salary, violence and insecurity, sharing of the welfare schemes, spread the language in an unforced way and Cultural integration.” Migrants are poor Adivasis/Tribals and Dalits. Most of the population is Youth. Most of them travel for 3–5 days covering 2000 Km to reach their destinations in south India. Migrate from Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, UP, Meghalaya, Manipur and apart from Nepal and Bangladesh.
Migrants live amid language problems, different food and culture, hazardous workplace, hard physical labour, dangerous work site at the risk of losing their lives, occupational diseases like — skin disease, burnt and cut wounds, itching, wheezing, kidney stones, no bladder control, T.B, and cancer. Children, in general, suffer due to deprival of nutritious and hygienic food, no proper living place, Children being confined to one place and being dropouts. Pregnant women suffer without a basic medical facility.
Most of the migrants suffer from Low wages, delayed wages, overtime work, deprivation of compensation at the time of death, and when the parts of the body are cut and affected. In this pathetic condition, We the Jesuit Migrants Service serve the deprived, underprivileged and those on the periphery of Society in the following ways. We work for the education of children, empowerment of women and rights of migrants who live on construction sites, and brick lines and who work in the companies for daily wages.
These migrants come under the unorganized sector and are not registered in the labour union because they do not come to the destination states legally. We organize the skill development training and work for the holistic development of the migrants through various seminars, conventions, celebrations, rallies and protests. In case of death and hazards at the workplace, we help and guide our migrants to get compensation.
(Sr. Alosiya SJL., belongs to St Joseph of Lyons congregation, currently lives in Chennai. She has completed Psychology and Sociology and mastered herself in Comparative Religious Studies at Madras university. She has the wider experience of working among the widows and abandoned women at Nagapattinam district from 2009–2012. Since 2019 she is working in Jesuit Migrants Service (JMS) and serves the migrants based in the districts of Chennai, Thiruvallur, Chengalpet, Kancheepuram and Ranipet.)
