Impacts of COVID‐19 induced food insecurity among informal migrants: Insight from Dhaka, Bangladesh

• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Author: Md. Salman Sohel,Babul Hossain,Md. Nazirul Islam Sarker,Gazi Abu Horaira,Md. Khaled Sifullah,Md. Abadur Rahman
• Date: 01 December 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2770

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Impacts of COVID-19 induced food insecurity among informal

migrants: Insight from Dhaka, Bangladesh

Md. Salman Sohel

1

| Babul Hossain

2

| Md. Nazirul Islam Sarker

3

|

Gazi Abu Horaira

4

| Md. Khaled Sifullah

2

| Md. Abadur Rahman

5

1

Asian Research Center, Hohai University,

Nanjing, China

2

Centre For Advanced Social Research, Dhaka,

Bangladesh

3

School of Political Science and Public

Administration, Neijiang Normal University,

Neijiang, China

4

Ghazali Shafie Graduate School of

Government, University Utara Malaysia,

Kedah, Malaysia

5

Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern

Cross University, Sydney, New South Wales,

Australia

Correspondence

Babul Hossain, Centre For Advanced Social

Research, Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh.

Email: babulhhu@gmail.com

Food insecurity is one of the rising problems in Bangladesh, and it is severely preva-

lent among informal migrant workers. In this case, the COVID-19 pandemic has mul-

tiplied the food insecurity of informal migrant workers. This study explores and

synthesizes the COVID-19 induced food insecurity impact among informal migrants

and recommends policy actions to tackle the COVID-19 led food crisis in

Bangladesh. A qualitative research approach, including in-depth interviews, four

FGDs, and participant observation, has been applied to data collection from different

parts of Dhaka city. A thematic approach to interpretive phenomenological analysis is

followed in this study. The results show that COVID-19 induced lockdown signifi-

cantly affects informal migrants' household food security. Most participants report

severe complications due to food insecurity like consuming less food, price hiking, no

fish or meat, potato, and vegetable. Food insecurity leads to migrant's chronic food

shortage, starvation, malnutrition of mother and children, and unhealthy food. As a

result, the way of life of informal migrants has been directed to more fragility and vul-

nerability during the pandemic; even they are not affordable to maintain a minimal

level of family affairs and necessity. The findings of this study would be essential

guidelines for the governmental and non-governmental organizations and develop-

ment practitioners to address the food insecurity situations.

KEYWORDS

COVID-19, floating people, food scarcity, food supply chain, pandemic induced hunger

1|INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 pan demic has globally assigned several complications,

including widespread health issues. It has also provoked the global

recession, the world economy's most severe crisis since the end of

World War II (M. D. Smith & Wesselbaum, 2020). At the end of

December 2019, the first coronavirus cases (COVID-19) were found

in Wuhan, China (Tuncer, 2020). After a rapid increase in early 2020,

it was declared a public health crisis of international concern at the

end of January, and the WHO announced the epidemic on March

11 (Concern Worldwide, 2021). The national government has intro-

duced various travel restrictions to limit the spread of the disease. For

example, on April 7, 2020, national governments in 32 countries and

territories in Asia, 43 in Europe, 38 in the Americas and the Caribbean,

and 44 in Africa introduced various levels of restrictions (Mottaleb

et al., 2020). Even the Amazon rainforest has penetrated deep into

the novel Coronavirus, threatening isolated tribes. Coronavirus causes

a detrimental effect on society, human health, and morbidity and mor-

tality increased globally (World Health Organization, 2020). The

COVID-19 crisis has led to an extreme food crisis worldwide,

impacting people's food habits and health. Food deficiency can lead to

famine, starvation, and malnutrition since food is the essential basic

need. It has been documented that approximately most countries

worldwide have somehow suffered from the paucity of foods during

this pandemic (Abdul Manap & Ismail, 2019; Colafemmina

et al., 2020; Nasereldin et al., 2021; Pakravan-Charvadeh et al., 2021).

Received: 2 March 2021 Revised: 12 August 2021 Accepted: 1 October 2021

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2770

J Public Affairs. 2022;22(Suppl. 1):e2770. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of13

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2770