Lausanne World Pulse – Migrant Workers: The Responsive Wave
By Bryan Galloway and Jessie Rushing
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It is estimated that migrant workers and their families |
As we sat eating various lentil curries with rice, we discussed our background and family. Several men were fisherman in their homeland. We also talked about how long they had been in the country. Then, to our astonishment, one of the men who appeared to be a leader in the group exclaimed,
“We have nothing! We thought we would find a better life for our family. However, we were tricked. We spend all of our salary paying back the fees imposed upon us. All I want to do is go home.”
Several other men then said that when they were fishermen they had a better life and made more money. This story is one among a plethora of stories in the world of migrant workers.
It is estimated that migrant workers and their families total around 120 million worldwide.1 Migrant workers come with different ethno-linguistic backgrounds, worldviews and dispositions toward life. They are lives in transit, looking for ways to fill their homelessness and loss of roots. This article focuses on migrant workers in Asia Pacific, challenging church-missions to prioritize this large unreached bloc of peoples as a last frontier peoples.
Migrant Workers of Asia Pacific
Migrant workers have a long history in Asia2 and therefore the wave of migrant workers is not new to Asia Pacific. Estimates suggest that Asia Pacific countries house over twelve million migrant workers, a number which continues to show steady increases.
Most of these workers come from Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Most find jobs—legally or illegally—in Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Although many countries are dependent on foreign labor, none want large numbers of migrant workers—especially low-skilled workers—to settle permanently.3 As a result, many have made concerted efforts to prevent both illegal immigration and settlement. Despite such efforts, it is estimated that “half of migrant workers are illegal workers; in Japan and Korea, the percentage is more than eighty percent.”4 The following table provides rounded estimates of documented (legal) migrant workers in selected Asia Pacific countries:
TABLE 1: Number of Documented Migrant Workers in Selected Asia Pacific Countries
| Country | Number | Source of Information |
| Korea | 400,000 | Kim 20075 |
| Japan | 760,000 | Park 2006 |
| Thailand | 1,300,000 | Kaur 2006 |
| Malaysia | 1,800,000 | New Straits Times 2006 |
| Singapore | 600,000 | Piper 2005 |
| Indonesia | 500,000 | Southeast Asia 2007 |
| Australia | 2,300,000 | Austrialian Bureau of Statistics 2004 |
| New Zealand | 400,000 | Statistics New Zealand 2005 |
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Bryan Galloway (left) has served in roles such as church planter and regional administrator in cross-cultural missions for twenty years with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church. For the past eight years, he has served as the regional research coordinator for the IMB-SBC Pacific Rim region. Jessie Rushing (right) has been a missionary associate in the Pacific Rim region since 2000. He is involved in ethnographic research on unreached people groups of the region. He is also part of a church planting/evangelization team working among ethnic Chinese. |
