Labour Migration in Bangladesh: Experiences of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Indigenous Women Workers

Labour migration involves the movement of people from one place to another for economic betterment. A migrant labourer or worker is one who migrates to a different place, either nationally or internationally, in pursuit of work. While vast numbers of people still migrate from rural to urban areas within their own country,the number of international migrant workers reached as high as around 244 million world-wide (United Nations 2015: 5), women have remained invisible in the studies of migration for a very longtime; their socio-economic contribution and unique experiences have not been taken into account by migration experts. In the 1960s and 1970s migration theories often assumed that most migrant workers were men, and women were merely dependents. However by the 1980s, due to the feminization of poverty and changes in world economic policies, which created a demand for women’s cheap labour, women’s participation both within and outside labour markets significantly increased as they became family breadwinners (Paiewonsky 2009).