Generally, especially in the case of labour migrants or emigrants/permanent residents, the four stages/phases of migration are the following:
Pre-migration
At times, this is also referred to as the pre-decision phase which occurs when an individual or family is planning to live or work in another country, is in the look-out for opportunities overseas which can be through work, studies, permanent residency, family reunification, etc., and is preparing for the requirements on how to go through these. This stage can also be manifested through the following activities: enrolment in courses or skills training that are in demand overseas, look-out for vacancies or recruitment agencies, and weighing the pros and cons of living or working abroad.
Pre-departure
the stage where the prospective migrant is in the process of complying with the requirements for migration, and after compliance, is ready to go abroad. This stage can be manifested in: paying the placement fees to the recruiter, getting passport and visa, having medical examinations, attending PDOS and getting overseas employment certificates.
Onsite
The stage where the migrant is living or working onsite which is the destination or host country/locality. In some instances, onsite can be also be in the transit country. Some migrants work while in transit countries, mostly in irregular situation.
Return and reintegration
Depending on the situation of migrants, return and reintegration could be abrupt/sudden or planned, temporary or permanent, prepared or unprepared. A specific section of this FAQ provides more information on return and reintegration.
Unfortunately, in Bangladesh no returnee database is available and reintegration process is not well established. Government of Bangladesh provides re-integration loans to the returnee migrants through probashi kallayan bank but unfortunately most of the returnee migrants have no knowledge about this and loan procedure is little difficult. Beside this returnee migrants have lack of knowledge about business or entrepreneurship or self-employment. Ministry of Expatriates concerned about this issue and they have vision to work on reintegration in a large scale.
In the case of forced migration or internally displaced people, the pre-migration and pre-departure phase usually do not apply because of the immediacy or urgency of their movement or transfer to another place.
Various programs and services both at the origin and destination countries are implemented to prepare the migrants in all these stages of migration and cope with the opportunities and challenges in each stage. In addition to the pre-decision/migration and pre-departure training or orientation seminars, there are also necessary to organize post-arrival and reintegration seminars for the returnee migrants.
