COVID-19 through a Migration Lens
Migrant workers within and across countries are central to food systems – agricultural production, and food processing, transportation, and retail – globally. To contain the spread of COVID-19, mobility restrictions, border closures, and lockdowns have limited migrant workers’ ability to perform these essential functions, threatening food supply in places most reliant on their labor while affecting the livelihoods of millions of migrant workers, and their families who depend on their earned incomes in the form of remittances.
To put a spotlight on the vital contribution of migrants to the global economy, and how this will impact food security during the COVID-19 pandemic, FAO North America and the CSIS Global Food Security Project hosted a public webinar featuring experts from FAO, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the World Bank, and the US Department of Labor.
Migrant workers’ own health and livelihoods are threatened by COVID-19 “due to the informal nature of their employment with little to no access to health care, poor housing and working conditions, and language barriers,” said Caitlin Welsh, Director, Global Food Security Program, who moderated the discussion.
According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, the COVID-19 pandemic is having serious and disproportionate effects on migrants and their families globally. “We strongly believe that all migrants should have access to response measures, including health and social protection, regardless of their migratory or working status. Unfortunately, many don’t,” said Vimlendra Sharan, Director of FAO North America. He noted that FAO is focused on highlighting the important role of migrants in agri-food systems and documenting the impact of movement restrictions and other constraints are already having on labor supply which in turn is affecting food availability and market prices.
“We are in a pandemic, a health crisis, but this health crisis has generated an unprecedented mobility crisis,” stressed Eugenio Ambrosi, Chief of Staff at IOM in his keynote remarks. Mobility restrictions are further exacerbating vulnerabilities that already existed, particularly for migrants and refugees, increasing inequalities in access to basic services, and in some cases leading to desperate measures such as human trafficking and smuggling. As evidence has shown “exclusion is much costlier than inclusion,” said Ambrosi, as he explained the importance of linking migration policy with COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.
The pandemic is already expected to cause historic reductions in remittances. In 2019, remittances to low and middle-income countries alone reached a record high of USD 554 billion, three times higher than official development assistance, shared Dilip Ratha, Head of KNOMAD and Lead Economist, Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice, World Bank. The World Bank estimates that remittances will decrease by 20 percent in 2020, disproportionately affecting poor and lower-skilled migrants working in irregular and informal sectors. Providing access to banking, financial inclusion, and overcoming regulatory barriers should be a priority as “remittance flows are humanitarian flows that provide livelihoods,” said Ratha.
Mobility restrictions have created severe labor shortages from the onset of the pandemic, disrupting agriculture value-chains, especially during the crucial planting and harvesting seasons in all regions, highlighted Cristina Rapone, Migration and Rural Employment Specialist at FAO. "The majority of the workers in agriculture and agro-food systems often work under informal or casual arrangements, which leave them unprotected, vulnerable to exploitation, poverty and food insecurity," she explained. Furthermore, they work under precarious working conditions with increased risk of occupational and health hazards, as well as contracting and spreading the virus. She emphasized the importance of protecting workers at the workplace and putting in place mechanisms to regularize migrant workers, extending working visas, matching quotas, providing safe mobility and access to basic services.
Whitney Ford, Director of the Division of Agriculture at the U.S. Department of Labor, shared the mission of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division which is to promote and achieve compliance with labor standards through enforcement and education. They enforce the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act; H-2A program; as well as the field sanitation standards of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. “In fiscal year 2019, the Wage and Hour Division concluded more the 1100 investigations in the agriculture industry finding more than USD 6 million in back wages for nearly 9000 agricultural workers and assessing more than USD 6.3 million in civil money penalties,” said Ford. She highlighted the OSHA and CDC guidelines on protecting workers from COVID-19, and that the Families First Coronavirus Response Act requires covered employers to provide up to 80 hours of paid sick leave to employees for specified reasons related to COVID-19.
The engaging session conveyed the complexity of the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic and mobility restrictions are having on migrant workers and agricultural supply chains. It highlighted how despite migrant workers' contributions to essential sectors such as agriculture, they work under less than favorable conditions, which also makes them vulnerable to contracting and spreading the virus, which is compounded by their lack of access to basic services such as health care. Recognizing migrant workers' fundamental human rights, revising policy frameworks to be more inclusive of them as well as including them in COVID-19 response efforts will be essential to building back better.
Useful resources
FAO’s work Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)
FAO Policy Brief on Migrant workers and the COVID-19 pandemic
IOM Statement on COVID-19 and Mobility
OSHA-CDC Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for COVID-19
World Bank Predicts Sharpest Decline of Remittances in Recent History