Conflict-Induced Migration and Economic Opportunities: The Integration of Yemeni Migrants in Indonesia Amidst the Ongoing Yemeni Crisis

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The Yemeni intractable conflict (2011 to present) causes one of the worst humanitarian crises in the century. This study aims at revealing how migration during conflict opens economic opportunities for Yemenis who migrated to Indonesia from 2011. The study proposed to analyze the links between the historical commercial migration and recent war migration and their impacts on the integration of the most recently arrived Yemenis to Indonesia. To do so, we draw on the theories of conflict-induced migration and related studies concerning the phenomenon of Yemenis migration to Indonesia. The study utilizes descriptive phenomenological research design to collect data and recruit the participants. Twenty-seven Yemeni migrants were recruited to fill in the online survey distributed by the Yemeni Community, and twenty Yemeni migrants, chosen purposively, were interviewed. Our prior findings show that, unlike the first wave of Yemeni’s migration that is described as “chain migration” by which most of the migrants were from Hadhramout migrated for religion and business purposes, the second wave of migration is motivated by a severe conflict in Yemen which caused a forced migration or ‘conflict-induced migration’. In addition to macro-factors of migration ‘political and economic’, micro-factors, namely social factors such as intermarriage, education, teaching (mainly Qur’an and its science), trading, and family union led to current migration. Other psychological factors such a ‘stigma’ not to return to Yemen due to the complexity of the situation, most Yemeni prefer to marry Indonesian women to secure a better life. Instead, due to the complexity of the Indonesian working visas and business ownerships for foreigners, most of the Yemenis prefer to implement the ‘integration’ strategy to survive and cope with the situation. The study concludes that the current wave of migration is an extension of the pre-colonial and colonial waves; however, what differs is the social integration, through which many economic opportunities become available due to their marriages to Indonesian women.