Migration and Rural-Urban Linkages in Ethiopia

elatives or looking for employment. When villagisation took place in 1987 migrantsfrom the area around Turufe were resettled in the village.Women have mainly migrated into the area with their families and especially throughmarriage. These include Oromo, Amhara, Tigrayan, Kembata, and Wolayita women. Inmany cases the women came to visit relatives with whom they stayed and who arrangedmarriages for them. Several came after failed first marriages, leaving their husbands tocome to live with relatives in the area.Turufe Kecheme: Out-migration trendsThe area of Turufe has been mainly one of in-migration. However, our FGDs revealedthat there have been migrants who went away from the area, and some seasonal labourmigration. Out-migration was rare in the past except for a few men who worked on forestlumber works in Bale. However, migration from Turufe is now mainly to urban areas.Unemployed youths look for work especially in the closest towns such as Kuyera, ArssiNegele and Shashemene, particularly in loading trucks and chopping wood. A few boysfrom poor households, from the age of five upwards, go to work as brokers or weyala taxiassistants in Kuyera. Many youths act as brokers between farmers and local tradersduring the potato harvest season. More than thirty such brokers are said to live in Turufeand work in nearby towns of Kuyera, Negele and Shashemene. A few look for workfurther away in Bale, Jimma and Addis Ababa. Some men are ex-soldiers and most seemto have gone back to farming. One man worked in an Italian lumber company earning agood salary and has continued in the trade.A few men with skills in carpentry, plumbing and masonry earn better incomes and travelfurther for several months at a time to other towns in Oromia or the Southern Region.More than twenty young men are working as traders in Awassa, Shashemene and AddisAbaba, and as government employees in various parts of Oromia (Jimma, Bako, Bokojiand as far as Kemise), a trend which respondents mentioned as a relatively newdevelopment.Out-migration by women is considered shameful and only the poorest do so. A fewwomen work in Hamus Gebeya and Kuyera as labourers baking injera, washing clothes,in the alcohol making business and cooking at the hospital. A few others find jobs asshop assistants or in bars. Some work as servants either during the day, living in Turufe,or are provided accommodation in the houses of their employers. Some have been able toearn a decent income preparing food in peoples’ houses, bars or hospitals, and a few havebeen able to assist their families from the income and have gained respect for earningtheir own livelihood. However, FGD respondents stressed that working as a servantentails health risks from hard labour, as well as risks of rape and pregnancy, which canaffect their life chances; success cases beyond earning a decent living seem rare.The following table shows that out of 250 households with 1613 members, a total of 75household members or 5 percent of members were outside the village at the time of the30