ABSTRACT
Deserted by her husband, Jahanara (50) decided to move in to her mother’s place along with two sons 25 years ago. Her sister Rupa (40) also followed her path when her husband died after a few years of their marriage leaving behind a daughter. The household was too poor to feed the children. So, Jahanara decided to send Rupa to Kuwait as a hospital cleaner in 2000. ‘Why did you choose Rupa?’ In answer to this question, Jahanara stated: ‘Rupa had the experience of working in a garment factory in Dhaka. Moreover, if she can earn money, someone will need to stay here to manage it – that’s why both of us didn’t migrate. Also, if I would have gone, who would have taken care of our children?’ According to the locally important persons, the household has earned visible economic mobility over the last 15 years. While 15 years ago they used to live hand to mouth, now the sisters own more than 100 decimals of land. Also, Rupa has managed to take two more members abroad. Like Jahanara and Rupa, millions of Bangladeshis have entangled
themselves into remitter-recipient relations over the past decades in their venture to improve the economic portfolio of the household by foreign remittances. Overseas labour migration has already been identified as a preferred livelihood strategy for many households in Bangladesh (Siddiqui and Abrar 2003; Toufique and Turton ed. 2003; Siddiqui 2010; Rahman and Yong 2015). Official record shows that from 1976 to 2015, 9.69 million Bangladeshis went abroad as short-term labour migrants, with over 90 per cent to the Middle East and Southeast Asia (BMET 2016).
