Memorandum by Childhood Poverty Research
Centre,[35]
Save the Children UK/ Chronic Poverty Research Centre to the International
Development Select Committee
1. The Childhood Poverty Research and Policy
Centre (CHIP), a sub-centre of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre
and part of Save the Children UK, welcomes the opportunity to
submit evidence to the International Development Select Committee.
The evidence is based on policy research in Asia and on some of
the broad experiences of SC UK programmes operating worldwide.
It focuses on internal, voluntary migration and relates to development,
poverty reduction and migration (point 1 in the Select Committee's
TORs), south-south migration (point 6) and development coherence
and policy on migration ( point 7). We are particularly concerned
with:
— Access to basic services of children
and their communities in places of origin and of destination.
— The need for joined up, flexible
development policy that considers the impact of policy reforms
on particular groups and areas.
SCALE AND
PATTERNS OF
MIGRATION
2. Migration has become a major development
issue in all the countries in which CHIP and Save the Children
works. Mongolia, for example, has a long tradition of pastoralist
population movement but, since transition in the early 1990s,
the rate of migration has rapidly increased, particularly from
rural to urban areas. Movement focuses overwhelmingly on the capital
Ulaanbaatar; the city's official population was just under 700,000
in 2000, almost 100,000 of whom were official in-migrants who
had arrived between 1995 and 2000[36]Such
large-scale movements, not specific to Mongolia, have massive
development implications.
3. Focusing on internal migration, migration
patterns are complex. Many migrants do not perceive their move
to be a permanent one. In India, the demand for seasonal labour,
for example working on road construction programmes, draws families
to an area for a short period of time. In Mongolia, many families
settle in certain places for a longer period but only as a stepping
stone on the way to Ulaanbaatar. Where education systems do not
allow for such movements, or when multiple movements affect a
child's ability to attend and realise their potential, children
are often denied the life chances education can bring. Children's
life chances are also affected by migrants' perceptions of a location
change being temporary: in Kyrgyzstan many migrants moving to
the capital, Bishkek, believe that they are there in order to
save money and thus keep their expenditure on living conditions
and on social services to a minimum[37]
4. It is important to view children and
young people as active decision-makers rather than passive players
in the migration process. Hopes for better opportunities for children,
particularly related to education, are often a major reason for
families to move. Children migrate alone, sometimes in advance
of their families, for education and for work. In Mongolia many
children are sent on ahead of their parents and siblings to study
in an urban area. In Andhra Pradesh, children often move to the
cities together with young friends and relatives.[38]
Research in India suggests many children migrate independently
for work, even against the wishes of their families.[39]
THE LINK
BETWEEN DEVELOPMENT
AND MIGRATION
(AND POVERTY
REDUCTION AND
MIGRATION)
5. Migration is a response to a complex
interaction between different policy and non-policy factors. Migration
in transition countries occurs in the context of rapid liberalisation
with mass privatisation, opening up of markets, lifting of restrictions
on movement of labour and population generally and the collapse
of rural economies. In Rajasthan in India, migration occurs in
the context of persistent drought and the tribal population's
extremely poor access to resources. Throughout the world, for
many individuals and families, migration is a drastic strategy
for coping with insecurity and hardship or a means to better their
lives and opportunities. Often, it is only those with the contacts
or just enough resources to move who can adopt this coping strategy.
6. The effects of migration on children
and their families and communities, particularly those most vulnerable
to falling into or falling deeper into poverty, are far-reaching.
As confirmed by research and experience in Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan,
India and China that considers children's access to basic and
vital services, there are clearly those who benefit from migration,
and those who do not. For children growing up in those households
and areas that do not benefit from migration, the implications
are potentially very serious. As a one-off window of opportunity
and development, childhood matters. Lost opportunities in childhood
cannot always be regained later.
CHILDREN, FAMILIES
AND COMMUNITIES
IN THE
AREAS LEFT
BEHIND
7. The common focus on migrants in analyses
often neglects the development of areas of high out-migration
and those women, men, girls and boys left behind.
8. Experience from research in transition
countries shows that as people move out of an area, the potential
for development of the area and the children and communities left
behind is reduced. The local economy suffers as the tax base dwindles,
traders prioritise areas with more producers and employment opportunities
become scarce. The gradual disintegration of the social fabric,
due to a range of factors one of which is movement of people out
of area, increases the stress on those struggling to make a livelihood.
With fewer informal support mechanisms available to families,
the viability of paid services is increasingly questionable.
9. The rights of all children to an education
are being denied as livelihoods are increasingly strained, sometimes
to the extent of increasing children's own role in income generation,
and by the quality of education services provided in the area.
In contrast to urban schools that receive a fixed budget, school
budgets in rural areas of Mongolia are dependent on the number
of pupils in class which reduces as families move away. Schools
operating under capacity cannot afford to provide good quality
education, particularly when they are operating in a broader policy
environment of fiscal deficit and budget cuts and a local environment
of household and local government hardship.
10. Family structures in these areas are
changing. Higher demands are falling on grandparents as primary
carers, who are themselves experiencing diminishing resources
in the form of pensions and other support.[40]
Families are split as one or more members, often a parent, leaves.
The long-term effects of this are visible in those communities
"left behind" by those seeking work elsewhere, many
of whom start second families in their place of work. This has
long been a major issue in southern Africa, with labour migration
to the mines in South Africa.[41]
IN AREAS
OF HIGH
IN -MIGRATION
11. Many migrants' lives do improve as a
result of moving, including their opportunities for employment,
particularly in the informal and private sectors[42]People,
young and old, appreciate their increased access to utilities
like electricity and to information through television and other
media as well as the end to the more difficult aspects of their
life in a rural area, such as limited access to water supply.
12. However, not all migrants can benefit
from the more positive aspects of urban life. And for many, some
benefits come at a price. When employment is found, a household's
income often increases, but employment in a burgeoning informal
sector or in some private companies involves low pay, long hours
and little job security. This has implications both for the burden
of poverty carried by children as their responsibilities increase
at home and for the care and support available from parents and
guardians so important to children as they grow up.
13. The costs of basic services are often
high in urban areas making it difficult for those already struggling
to prioritise them within their household expenditure. This includes
the costs of the water and electricity, often seen as major benefits
of moving. It also includes subsidiary costs: even though education
might be free, the costs of tuition fees, uniforms, books and
contributions to school funds add up. When such demands on household
income are coupled with generally higher costs of living in urban
areas, people often have to turn to others for assistance. As
traditional support systems are eroded by mass population movement
and increasing poverty, many people turn to high interest borrowing,
increasing their vulnerability.
14. Migrant families, particularly those
with less income and no option of joining relatives living in
more central areas, often can't afford to live in the areas with
the better services. Experience in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, Ho Chi
Minh City in Vietnam and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia demonstrates
the often extreme hardships faced by many migrants moving to peri-urban
and other areas of high in-migration, including lack of access
to health care, water and sanitation, education and social welfare[43]Where
registration comes at a price (as a method used to try and reduce
rates of migration), it leads to increased further marginalisation
of the already disadvantaged.
15. In areas of high in-migration, urban
services are often over-stretched, affecting migrants and non-migrants
in the area alike. Schools are overcrowded: children might benefit
from the better physical conditions of buildings and heating systems
in urban areas, but pupil-teacher ratios are often very high,
seriously affecting the quality of education available. Where
school budgets are affected by reduced public spending in order
to reduce the fiscal deficit and where resource allocation is
fixed rather than per capita, it is increasingly difficult for
schools to cope[44]
Policy responses to migration by local, national
and international stakeholders must therefore:
— Recognise and respond to, not ignore,
the effects of non-policy factors and of policy choices, particularly
liberalisation, on population movement within countries.
— Recognise the far-reaching effects
of migration on those who are moving, those who live in areas
of high in-migration and those who are left behind. These require
joined-up policy that combines realistic but high priority rural
and regional development strategies with policies to prevent and
mitigate the negative effects of migration in destination areas.
— Not try to stop movement. An inflexible
use of registration fees as a policy tool to try and stem migratory
flows and to cover costs of services in urban areas often leads
to the further marginalisation of migrants and denies them access
to critical health, education, welfare and other services.
— Promote more locally-appropriate,
flexible models of service provision and support to changing family
structures in order to make a reality the rights of all children
to an education, health care and protection. This may mean more
investment in mobile schools, for example, where people migrate
seasonally. It means exploring different models of infrastructure
provision, especially in water and sanitation that, for example,
do not always rely on waiting for the extension of capital-intensive
piped systems into marginalised areas with burgeoning populations.
It means investing in social protection systems that target assistance
at individuals in need rather than assuming a typical family structure.
— Where budgets are tight and populations
and areas are large, hard choices will have to be made to prioritise
actions. We urge policy makers at all levels to ensure that all
policy choices are analysed with respect to the effects that they
will have on marginalised girls, boys, women and men and the potential
to contribute to poverty reduction.
November 2003
35 The Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre
links research, policy and programm based organisations to develop
knowledge, policy and action on childhood poverty. It is funded
by DFID, Save the Children UK, the International Save the Children
Alliance and that Chronic Poverty Research Centre. Please contact
Jenni Marshall (j.marshall@mcfuk.org.uk) or see www.childpoverty.org
for more information. Back
36
Dats from Population and Housing Centre, 2000, in GoM/MUNDP, 2000.
Human Development Report 2000, and in Demers, L and T Navch, 2001,
Internal Migration in Mongolia: Macro and Micro perspectives. Back
37
Insights from CHIP research in Kyrgyzstan-forthcoming in April
2004. Back
38
Insights from Young Lives research in Andhra Pradesh, India forthcoming
in February 2004. Back
39
Iversen, V, 2000, Autonomy in child labour migrants, Discussion
Paper No 248, School of Development Studios, University of East
Anglia. Back
40
Insights from CHIP research in Kyrgystan. Back
41
Harper, C and Marcus, R, 1999, Child Poverty in Sub-Sahara Africa,
paper prepared for the SPA Poverty Status Report, 1999. Back
42
PTRC/MSWL/UNFPA, 2001, A micro study of internal migration in
Mongolia 2000. Preliminary findings from CHIP research on the
effects of rural-urban migration on children's well-being in transition
Mongolia. Back
43
NCC/UNICEF/SCF, 2002, Peri-Urban Areas of Ulaanbaatar: The Living
Condition of the Child Service. Rakishova, K, 2003. Impact of
the internal migration upon the poverty problem, Paper prepared
for the World Bank Central Asia Poverty Research Conference, 3-4
July, Iasyk-Kyl, Kyrgyzstan. Back
44
Preliminary findings from CHIP research on the effects of rural-urban
migration on children's wellbeing in transition Mongolia. Back
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