Impact of Covid-19 outbreaks on migrant workers

Abstract

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 an epidemic, causing a public health emergency of international concern. Despite the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, the migration of seasonal agricultural workers was exceptionally allowed in Turkey, as the labor force of seasonal agricultural workers is a crucial factor in the Turkish agricultural economy. Since seasonal workers are employed as temporary irregular workers, they obtain information from brokers (Çavuşlar) about farms that require workers. They worked on farms for five to six months while migrating according to the information. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has become a very threatening obstacle to those who live a migrant life. Nevertheless, they are forced to continue migrating agricultural labor due to their economic situation. In Turkey, 90% of seasonal agricultural workers live in the Southeastern Anatolia region, where they make a living from seasonal agricultural work without having other jobs. In particular, Şanlıurfa Province has the highest proportion of seasonal workers, even in the Southeastern Anatolia region. Therefore, Şanlıurfa Province, where we interviewed workers engaged in seasonal agricultural labor, was selected as the survey area. The interviews were conducted with seasonal workers from four households (total of 33 people) engaged in seasonal work during the period from May to October 2020. We utilized semi-structured, face-to-face in-depth interviews and telephone interviews with workers as the data collection methods. In this study, since the investigator who interviewed seasonal workers was a worker engaged in seasonal agricultural labor, in-depth interviews with seasonal workers were possible despite the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated the geographical mobility routes of migrants during that time. In addition, we examined how their living and working conditions changed and were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and what efforts were needed to improve their conditions. As a result of these studies, the emergence of COVID-19 has worsened working and living conditions, and it has been shown that it is urgent to prepare countermeasures against infectious diseases for vulnerable people.