Lausanne World Pulse – Perspectives Articles – Migrant Workers: The Responsive Wave
For many, becoming a migrant worker means economic gain. As such, they assume becoming a migrant worker will bring a better life. However, this is not always the case as their living and working conditions are not always ideal.
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In some countries, unskilled or semi-skilled migrant |
Living and Working Conditions for Migrant Workers
Since 1997, issues concerning migrant workers have brought considerable discussion among scholars.9 A common concern is the worsening plight of migrant workers.10
Even in the most developed countries, their salaries, working conditions and living quarters are well below standards for other workers. In Japan, for example, migrant workers on average earn the equivalent of 15,000 USD or about one half the 28,000 USD considered necessary to live in Japan.11 Migrant workers outside the professional classes in Japan face an almost xenophobic prejudice from the Japanese public.
In some countries, unskilled or semi-skilled migrant workers quite often live in hot, cramped—and often short on sanitary facilities—shipping containers. In spite of government regulations granting certain rights in nearly all countries, employers are able to ignore the regulations. Abuses such as withholding pay, confiscating passports and working excess numbers of hours are common.
In Thailand, Mahidol University conducted a study on migrants. The study reports that “about sixty percent of the migrants employed as domestic helpers were not allowed to leave the homes in which they were employed, and forty-three percent of migrants employed in agriculture, fishing and manufacturing reported that their employers kept their identity cards to restrict their movement, although some migrants reported that they used cell phones to communicate.”12
A Responsive Wave Even when atrocities and abuses do not exist, the new culture uproots migrant workers. Consequently, migrant workers struggle to adapt to a new culture as well as retain as many elements of their own culture as possible. In essence, they go through a type of rite of passage in order to make meaning of their new cultural environment.
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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. |