Socio-economic Baseline Survey of Chittagong Hill Tracts - chtdf

HDRCSocio-economic Baseline Survey of Chittagong Hill TractsCHAPTER VMIGRATION SCENARIO415.1 IntroductionDisplacement and migration from the usual place of residence is a major socio-economicissue for a large section of CHT residents. As it is seen in Chapter I (Section 1.1), KaptaiLake has displaced almost every third CHT residents. The armed conflict of 1976-1997 hasalso been the cause for displacement for a large number of inhabitants. Although there is adebate among different quarters about the size of the displaced population, everybody agreesthat some of these displaced persons had to cross the boarder and take shelter in India while aconsiderable number moved to different places within CHT and/or Bangladesh. In theliterature about CHT, those displaced people, who did not cross the border, are termed asinternally displaced persons (IDP).The current chapter analyzes and presents quantitative scenario related to the issue ofdisplacement of all ethnic communities (including the Bangalees) from two perspectives: (i)changes in permanent addresses during thirty years (1977-2007) prior to the study, (ii)moving out of the places usual residences by household member(s) during conflict period andtheir returning back. However, it is to note that for Bangalee households, the displacementscenario has been taken into account in the survey comprises of only those episodes whichtook place after the household had settled in CHT.The survey reveals that around 31% of households living inrural CHT had to ever change their usual place ofresidences during the investigation period (Box 5.1), and onan average a household had to change the address 1.7 times.between 1977 and 2007The reported maximum number of change of permanentresidence is 9 times. On the whole, about 13% householdshad to move two and more times within last 30 years (roughly one generation of life).Box 5.1: Displacement Scenario:CHT Households% of households reportedchange in permanent addressThe up to date data on CHT population is not available, officially. Therefore, one needs todepend on some logical assumptions to construct up to date population size of CHT. In thisconnection, an attempt has been made to estimate total number of CHT households as well asnumber of households who reportedly had experienced displacement (change in permanentaddress) during last 30 years. It is assumed that the current (2007) total number of householdsin rural CHT is same as it was reported in population census 2001. However, the householdsize in CHT has increased from 4.9 persons in 2001 to 5.2 persons in 2007 (as found in thepresent survey) 25 . Thus, it is assumed that at present there are about 183,000 households inrural CHT and of them about 56,000 reportedly had experienced at least one displacementduring last 30 years (be it experienced by current and/or the then household members).Estimates reveal that about 56,000 households from CHT have had experienced displacementat least once during the last 30 years.30.5Average # of change (times) 1.7Range (times) 1 - 925 HDRC survey 2008