The return home

Pakistani migrants abroad have a great role in the economies of their residence countries and they also send precious foreign remittances back home. These remittances add to the strategic foreign exchange of the country. Many spend lifetimes there away from home, and work hard to bring a positive change in their lives.

Quite often in Pakistan there are problems for many of them including unlawful occupation of their properties and litigation with relatives etc. So, instead of focusing on their work abroad their mind is stuck in these matters. It was an encouraging move that the government set up an organisation with the mandate to look after their applications/complaints on a priority basis.

The process of return migration is also a part of migrants’ lifecycle; they return to Pakistan to rebuild their life here and reconnect with their homeland. During the Covid-19 pandemic this number increased manifold and the figure of those working abroad plummeted. The pandemic affected the whole world and all the labour exporting countries suffered heavily. Citing the example of India, one finds that an Indian state levied coronavirus quarantine charges on migrant workers coming home because it could not afford these heavy charges itself. The country had targeted almost a million returnees to return home at that time due to the pandemic.

In Pakistan, most expatriates returned from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia according to the official data. But before talking about the issues of the returning Pakistani migrants, especially their reintegration, we look at the official data about them. According to the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF), approximately 9.87 million Pakistani workers had proceeded abroad after clearance from the offices of Protectorate of Emigrants, Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment (BE&OE) during the period 1971-2017 (up to June). The number of migrants leaving for destination countries has come down drastically due to the pandemic and the proposed dependence of their economies on non-oil and construction industries which were their strongholds.

Coming to the reintegration of the returnees, it is a process under which returning migrants resettle themselves into the social and economic structure of their countries of origin. It is an important part of the overall cycle of labour migration. The types of migrants include those staying legally, doing regular employment, naturalised citizens born there and even illegal ones, some of them seeking asylum.

A large number of illegal Pakistani immigrants are in European countries and, according to a briefing by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, prefer to stay in jails and do menial jobs instead of deciding to return home. According to a foreign affairs ministry briefing, many are asylum seekers who have torn up their passports and – despite facing extreme hardship in jails – refused voluntary repatriation or any assistance from Pakistani missions.

Coming back to returnees, the issue is that they find it hard to rebuild their lives here and enter the job market or do business without proper guidance. Due to having worked abroad for many years they are disoriented with the local job market and even their job experience does not match the requirements of the openings on offer here. But imparting certain skills can make them suitable for the local job market. The worst part is that there is hardly a helping hand to assist them overcome these challenges.

Similarly, the returnees who want to set up businesses with their savings are at risk of losing their investment – and those who have started their own businesses find it hard to expand and grow. They are unaware of the market dynamics, product demand, consumer behaviour, the norms of local business, target market and so on. A large number have been employed abroad and doing their own business is a new domain for them. One can recall how often we read or hear news of returnees losing or wasting their investment.

Here too there is a need for guidance to them to make investment secure and take informed decisions. Another problem is that they find it difficult to adapt to the local realities where systems are not working and you have to find certain ways to overcome the obstacles. This makes it difficult as well for them to amalgamate in the society which is not easy.

Lately a Pakistani-German Facilitation & Reintegration Centre (PGFRC) has started functioning in Lahore with an advisory desk in Islamabad. The PGFRC has been established by German development agency (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit – GIZ) in cooperation with the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development and Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) with the financial support of Germany’s Federal Ministry for economic cooperation & development (BMZ). The programme is supporting and assisting returning migrants and the local population with their social and economic reintegration.

It is a good development but keeping in view the scope of the issue, the effort needs to be scaled up. Not only are those returnees that are forcibly sent back home in need of these services, but whoever belonging to whatever category coming back is eligible and needs such help.

The writer is a staffer at The News.

Email: shahzada.irfan@gmail.com