India Repatriation Study

Date : 15/09/2021

The spread of the highly infectious COVID- 19 disease all over the world, from its beginning in Wuhan, China in late December, has been quick and devastating. The spread of the virus has left Governments with few responses in how to tackle the various consequences of the virus- be it political, social or economic. Most countries have enforced a lockdown of their countries to varying degrees, with the most severe being the total lockdown of India, which has restricted life and travel to a large degree. The COVID-19 crisis is no longer just a health crisis. It threatens the health, livelihood and income of workers globally, which in turn has affected a very important section of the workforce globally- that of international migrant workers, especially from developing nations like India. The increasing impact of the virus in major destinations countries, particularly the GCC countries, Europe and the United States, the limited mobility through air and the impact on economy and employment affects the international migrant workers to a great extent. While there have been major epidemics affected the world in the 21st century such as the SARS outbreak in 2002, the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, Ebola fever in 2014, Zika virus in 2016, none of these epidemics had attained the spread of the COVID- 19 outbreak. The major destination countries for Indian migrants such as the GCC countries, the United States and Italy have been adversely affected, which is a case that India is confronting for the first time. Among these workers, however, the most affected remain temporary workers who work in the GCC countries.