Nearly 14 million people across the world were forced to migrate temporarily or permanently from their home last year for political struggle, inter-state warfare, civil war, overseas employment or other reasons.
The global refugee population has reached from 10.5 million in 1985 to 60 million now, with women and children dominating the refugee flow from the Third World refugees.
This information was unveiled on Sunday during a presentation on Safe Migration at the national civil society consultation ahead of the 8th Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD).
The programme was jointly organised by WARBE Development Foundation, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) and Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) in the city.
The presentation was made by Syeda Rozana Rashid, an associate professor of Dhaka University.
She said north-south inequality and restrictive migration policies of the developed states, social transformation and conflicts in developing countries, economic globalisation and information flow, rise of transnational networks of migrants, smugglers and traffickers are the root causes of desperate economic migration.
Kazi Abul Kalam, joint secretary of the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment, said the government always tries to consult with civil society representatives while establishing rules and laws for the migrant workers.
"We've a plan to make a consultative group with civil society organisations who will give recommendation to the government's migration activities," he said
Shaheen Anam, executive director of MJF, said they always want to go for constructive dialogue with the authorities so that it can be win- win for the government, civil society and the migrant workers.
In the seminar, a book on "Impact of Migration on Poverty and Local Development" based on the experiences of 5,084 internal, international and non-migrant households in 17 districts of Bangladesh, was also launched.
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