Improving the life of communities through better migration systems

For decades, migration has been central to Bangladesh’s socio-economic development, and it is an important livelihood strategy for men, women and their families. In the last 5 years, an average of 750’000 Bangladeshis decided to leave the country in search of better job opportunities, with a steady increase, in particular also of women migrants. Remittances are one of the backbones of Bangladesh’s economy and, in 2023, amounted to 22 billion USD. Despite its importance, labour migration processes (including access to skills and information, recruitment, access to justice, remittances management, etc.) are still characterized by several gaps and limitations, rendering both male and female migrant workers and their families vulnerable and underutilizing their potential.

Helvetas Bangladesh together with its partners RMMRU, OKUP, Prottyashi, CCDAand BNWLA has been implementing the Strengthened and Informative Migration System (SIMS) project to improve the migrants’ well-being through safe migration practices and better service delivery from public and private actors

In phase I (2019-2024) SIMS concentrated on supporting migrant workers and their families, by strengthening their knowledge about safe migration and their rights. This allowed the project to introduce new and innovative methods and approaches, and to create a growing body of evidence for advocacy.

In phase II (2024-2028), SIMS will continue working to support the communities of migrant workers and their families to know and claim their rights, and with civil society organizations to advocate for better protection of the rights of migrants. A stronger focus, though, will be placed on consolidating systemic change, promoting the institutionalization of some of the approaches introduced during the first phase, and reinforcing the capacity building of the public and private service providers and institutions to provide better quality services to aspirant migrants.

Therefore, SIMS, while continuing to work at the District, Upazila and Union levels, will engage with relevant actors at the national level to influence the country’s migration policy framework. To foster positive changes in migration policies, advocacy and dissemination of SIMS learning will be at the core of this second phase.