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Illegal Migration, Refugees & COVID- 19 in India: A perspective of Demographic and Health Vulnerabilities

Naresh -, Central University of Gujarat

In the wake of the out-break of world COVID-19 pandemic, immigrants, refugees, and illegal migrants who are not the citizens of the host societies have been facing unprecedented hardship in several parts of the world. The refugees and undocumented or illegal migrants have faced many problems at the destination areas such as strong anti-sentiments towards them, racial discrimination, demographic threats for local and issues of national security, culturally differences which make them a separate and vulnerable segment of population at the destination countries. India is known world largest democratic country in the world and hold many refugees and migrants group across the borders. Most of the refugee groups in India belonged from the neighboring countries namely Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri- Lanka, Nepal. They were mainly forcibly emigrated from their origin places with the associated factors such as political partition of India, historical factors under British colonial ruled, socio-linguistic similarities, political persecution, ethnic conflicts, fear etc. It is estimation that India holds 15-20 million refugee and illegal migrants. But unfortunately, there is no trustworthy statistics which gives the accurate picture. This paper explored their historical reasons, vulnerabilities, size & distribution, their status, immediate and long-term challenges during COVID 19.

Keywords: International migration, Refugees, COVID-19, Migrant populations

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session 62. COVID-19 and Migration