An anatomy of forced and voluntary migration from Bangladesh: a gendered perspective

Abstract

In its thirty years of existence, Bangladesh has experienced many types of population movements. The nation’s birth was accompanied by the creation of refugee flows. It twice hosted refugees from the adjoining Arakan state of Burma. In the 1980s, a large number of ethnic minorities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts had to seek refuge in eastern Indian states to flee persecution and violence. The country also hosts about a quarter of a million Urdu-speaking non-Bengalis, who, for all practical purposes, may be termed stateless persons. Due to discriminatory laws and intimidation of the majority community, a section of Bangladeshi Hindus have been silently migrating to neighbouring India for a long time now. Furthermore, about two million people are displaced each year due to landlessness, river erosion, floods and other natural calamities. Displacement has also been caused by large-scale infrastructure development projects such as the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge.1 KeywordsLabour MigrationIrregular MigrationNationalist MovementBangladeshi WomanRiver ErosionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.