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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Migration and Poverty

There is a close connection between migration and poverty. Migration can be considered as an alternative to climb out of poverty. Conversely, under certain conditions, poverty creates the underlying reason for people to migrate. Labor mobility in Indonesia triggered by a number of factors such as the following: 

• There is no meeting point between the locations where job opportunities continue to grow with the location where the job seekers to stay; • Level of education continues to grow •  The process of rapid commercialization of the agricultural sector • a strong tradition in responding to local and regional conflicts by moving to another more secure location, either temporarily or permanently; • rigid patterns adopted by the majority of Indonesian society where families try to improve security •      Spread "migration industry" which increased rapidly in Indonesia • Tradition in terms of addressing the crisis by sending family members to areas that have job openings
Characteristic of mobility is that the situation is not permanent and circular. Migration can be considered as an alternative to climb out of poverty. In the context of Indonesia, one of the most popular form is the so-called "Management Mechanisms" (coping mechanism). Temporary migration is considered as one way to maximize family income and minimize risks (Stark, 1991). Internal migration to urban areas could be associated with macroeconomic growth and increased revenue as well as a strategy for the poor. Migration between countries is another source of improving the living standards of the poor (the majority in the context of Indonesia is the Indonesian Labor / Employment of Women).
Indonesia has implemented a resettlement program to move people from areas close to the capital to areas further afield. Census results showed that more than one fifth of all inter-provincial migrants are migrants who returned to the village (returned migrants) (Hugo 2002). Conflicts rooted in separatism, ethnic conflict and religious conflict are other factors which have great impact on increasing the number of IDPs. Most of the IDPs are women and children who are the groups most vulnerable communities.
One of the trends in terms of population movements which cause changes in the distribution of the population is urbanized. Two main elements can be made here to mark the changes referred to: 1. Re-classification of rural areas to urban 2. The movement from rural to urban areas.
 
Both of the above is very large impact on the labor market, meanwhile, the former reflects the change in the labor market due to increased employment opportunities in non-agricultural sector, causing many people to leave the agricultural sector. Widespread urban Indonesia tend to occur in one direction, a large number of villagers, particularly in Java, who worked in non-farm jobs are often located in the suburbs in the form of circular migration or commuting. Characteristic of the mobility of urban villages in Indonesia is the increasing role of women in the movement.
There are several examples of inter-provincial migration in which the amount you're a woman more than the number of men. Female migrants who moved to this town consists of two types: • Women with low education • medium-educated women
From the perspective of poverty reduction, the majority of population mobility in Indonesia is not fixed and is not detectable in standard data collection. There are several reasons why they choose non-permanent migration, among which are: • Type of mobility strategies like this are very compatible with participation in the urban informal sector employment as a flexible time commitment. Besides ease of entering the urban informal sector has also become a trigger; • Participation in employment in both urban and rural sectors causing • Cost of living in urban areas is much higher than in rural areas make many workers leave the family in the village. Wages of town with rural living standards will make their excessive profits; • The need to improve security in the family economy by increasing the chances of obtaining • penggangkutan system in Java is relatively cheap, many kinds, and allow workers to return to their home quickly; • Jobs in villages, especially at harvest time can be maintained. • Many employers or providers working in the informal and formal sector in large cities, which provide lodging for their employees; • Often the movement is part of family labor allocation strategies in which some of its members sent to other villages to memberian contributions to family income • In many cases, there is a social tendency to live and raise their children in the village • Social networks are important in the development of forms of migration such as this.
 
The regions most commonly chosen by migrants to seek temporary jobs, among others, are as follows: • areas that have a wealth of natural resources mining, forestry, and plantations; • scale development projects are large; • the area on the border with grow rapidly (eg, Batam);
Population mobility play an important role in the adjustment at the beginning of the crisis. The crisis has serious effects include: • Increased mobility to seek alternative sources of income and additional income. • Some people go back to the village but it is usually temporary, whereas the backbone (breadwinner) remained in the city; • The increase is not too meaningful in terms of migration from Java to other islands.
The crisis also resulted in most rural areas because of various reasons: • Many rural households depend on remittances from relatives working in cities • To a certain extent, the family that owns much land is protected from the crisis • city resident who is a first generation migrants prefer to go home and go from / to their homes in the city to / from place of birth and obtain any job in both places.
Thus it is clear that the mobility of the population has become coping mechanisms (coping mechanism) in a deal with the crisis. Indonesia has become one of the major suppliers of unskilled workers in the international market. There is a kind of turning point when the economic crisis started to hit and working abroad is one of the strategies adopted to overcome the crisis (Hugo 2000). Indonesian workers abroad are selectively chosen from the group and certain regions. This is mainly due to the growing importance of chain migration. Aspects of international labor migration can be mentioned in relation to poverty reduction among the following: • Overseas Contract Workers (The Overseas ContractWorkers / OCWs) absorbed from the rural areas and some of the poorest regions; • Most of the Overseas Contract Workers (OCWs) are those who do not have the skills and semi-skilled workers; • Most of the official OCWs are women, but the number of migrant women workers who have no official documents to increase • Indonesian People often have a lot of money to be able to work abroad • Issues of training and provision to work abroad is still not so considered; • Protection of workers abroad is still very low; • Money transfers from OCWs there are not too meaningful, but the impact on families, communities, and local area large enough; • The industry is increasingly widespread trafficking of women.
International labor migration opportunities seem to rise to help combat poverty in Indonesia., System of international labor migration in Indonesia need to be improved substantially, as hindered by a number of problems. Some key areas that need improvement include: • provision of accurate, timely and appropriate to prospective rural migrant workers • Effective Supervision of institutions / persons who recruit, and broker • The recruitment process is complicated to be simplified • Decentralization of the approval process • Increase efforts to protect migrant workers abroad. • Improve security of migrant workers remittances. In Indonesia the number of migrant workers abroad continued to increase, partly of them were still not registered (dark). Migrants tend to choose the path of unofficial because: • a formal system is too expensive, involving many elements that are not official; • a formal system takes much longer than the migration that is not registered; • Systems that are not listed is often more reliable
Therefore, efforts should be made to improve the legal system. The main policy implications of such patterns are discussed below. • Implications of government policies that should be sought is to remove barriers to travel around the country and encourage the mobility of workers as much as possible. • Avoid policies and initiatives that are not conducive to the migration of a circular (circular migration). • The promotion of policies that "migrant friendly" at the destination where there are job opportunities continue to grow. • Support a safe and reliable way to send money to their income without the expensive cost; • The need to improve information about the labor market,
Here are some recommendations proposed: • Reduce the practice of making excessive profits in this system. • migrant workers should be given accurate information and OCWs must be protected when they are abroad,
Thus, policies and programs need to be made in such a way so that gender-sensitive; • OCWs must have a safe and reliable means to send money to their families who live in Indonesia. • Various measures taken to combat human trafficking should be done


ADVICE

From the description above explains that immigration is closely associated with poverty, immigration is the safety for rural communities to get out of the poverty line improve their economic well inter-provincial migration as well as those abroad. However, many rural communities that do not offset by immigration role of government against efforts to facilitate the Immigrant especially registration for work abroad, so many are desperate imigrant leaving for abroad through institutions that are not official. This can harm Immigrant workers because of unofficial institutions can not guarantee the safety of Immigrant workers abroad.
Then the development gap that occurs in the lagging regions in parts of Indonesia also made the Immigrant is only temporary to settle in the region. The more dense population of the capital, more and more slums, high crime rates, as well as the economic crisis the government must have a strategy to cope with the immigration, but the government also guarantees the proper immigration destination to live with a conducive atmosphere, transport infrastructure, health, education that develops not much different in the capital city of course the people who make immigration in the national scope will feel prosperous. From exposure to the above authors also provide several recommendations that have been pretty good, besides that, I will also give recommendations to complement the recommendations of the writer who adapted to the ability of States including:
• Create a forum for discussion and intensive and regular meetings between Immigrant workers residing abroad with representatives of the Indonesian ambassador in that country, this is done to monitor, protect and accommodate the aspirations of the Immigrant workers residing abroad , so that they feel safe because many parties are ready to take to protect them if it feels aggrieved.

• There is uneven development or there is a gap of development such as lack of facilities, good infrastructure of education, health, communications, transportation, unsafe atmosphere in areas of potentially inter-provincial migration destination to make Indonesian people are reluctant to perform such migration in the region Papua pembangunnannya remains good potential to save millions of abundant natural resources, maritime and tourism potential is high, if the government is prioritizing development in the Papua region than it is to continue development in the Capital City / Jakarta that increasingly more and more years of uncontrolled development, population growth will development gap will not happen. Papua is a province in Indonesia to save millions in wealth if properly managed can become a growing area capable of creating vast employment opportunities, with the increasing number of Indonesian citizens who work the poverty level can be minimized. So my advice from the government should focus on the construction of facilities / infrastructure, creating a conducive atmosphere in areas that are left behind, so that with more and better infrastructure, a conducive atmosphere / safe, can be an attraction for the community, especially from the island of Java to migrate and be able to boost the economy. With the expected migration of the area will be growing.

• The government should focus in the realization of optimal programs that empower the workforce before going to the State Immigrant imigrant destination. For Immigrant workers already have a qualified human resource capacity before leaving for abroad. Because the majority of the workers who will go abroad Immigrant lacked sufficient skills provision.

• Place the representatives of the ministries in areas of inter-provincial immigration purposes is still lagging behind in the territory of Indonesia in order to quickly respond and be able to prepare a work plan based on problems in the field, then the bureaucrats can also be closer to the people. With the placement of representatives of ministries in the developed regions it is possible to minimize the development gap and to increase public kesejahterahan. So far the government is concentrated in the capital Jakarta, the minister and his staff only visited in lagging regions in a short amount of time how the public can know the deep problems that are happening in the area-the area. It is appropriate that the leaders who are paid from public money was also working for the interests of the people.

• Governments must commit ensure the safety of the international workforce, through an agreement with immigrant destination countries to work together in maintaining the safety of immigrant labor. Do not get immigrant workers abroad feel unsafe, treated casually, exploited arbitrarily by people outside the country. The role of embassies in destination areas of immigrants must be improved not mendeskriminisasikan immigrant workers mostly from the poor. Sometimes embassies less responsive in maintaining the safety of labor immigrants, there would be responsive if it is anything like the death of immigrant labor, then the torture of immigrant workers by employers who already highlighted by the mass media.

• The government appointed one of the body such as the post office or bank for money transfer services salaries of Immigrant labor is officially for the event of a fault can be accounted for.

• The government should monitor and take action against the rogue bureaucracy that does not intentionally collect money in accordance with the registration process procedures Immigrant workers
• Simplify the system of registration of the Immigrant labor is too complicated, with a more affordable cost, time not too long through one-stop service, one stop service and follow strictly the bureaucratic apparatus in the service of a convoluted.

• Develop accurate information about the cost of clarity, the destination, the risk faced, the steps should be taken if feel exploited arbitrarily so that the Immigrant workers are not confused when they are abroad, but it also contains the address information and telephone representatives Indonesian ambassador in destination countries such Immigrant workers. Information can be included via the Internet or create brochures, pamphlets.

Immigration is a trend to eradicate poverty by the people of Indonesia, but Inmigrasi will be a problem if the lack of government response to the facilitation of immigration. It should all Indonesian citizens get protection, good service from government, so in line with the monetary crisis, the increasing levels of immigration would be better if the government is also committed to enhance the protection, services to citizens

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