Effect of Mothers’ Migration to Arab Countries on The health of Families Left Behind in Butajira, Ethiopia: A qualitative study of lived husbands’ experiences

Abstract

Background: Despite the primary motive of migration which is to improve the living standard of a family at the place of origin, little is known about the effect of mothers’ migration to Arab countries on the health of families left behind. Ethiopia is one of the counties where females’ migration to Arab countries is highly a trend. This study is aimed at qualitatively exploring the effects of mothers’ migration to Arab countries on the health of families left behind in Butajira, Ethiopia.

Methods: Descriptive, phenomenological approach has been used in this study. The purposive sampling strategy was employed based on wanting to interview people who have lived experience with the research questions. Both primary and secondary sources of data were used. Seven interviews were conducted and the thematic analysis method was done using atlas.ti qualitative analysis software.

Result: This study explored that mothers’ migration to Arab countries has improved the livelihood of left-behind families. But husbands of the migrant woman were inefficient in their main work, stressed by household management, susceptible to HIV, and addicted to various substances. In addition, young children faced different incidents including illness, difficulty in keeping their hygiene, and getting nutritional food on time. Furthermore, they were abandoned and faced a range of accidents like poisoning, drowning, and submersion. Similarly, older children also faced sexual assault from their families, decreased performances in education or/and dropout from school to care for younger siblings or contribute to household labor.

Conclusion and Recommendations: Mothers’ migration to Arab countries contributes positive and negative impacts on the health of families left behind. In this study, the negative effect is more pronounced than the positive one because it could be compensated by remittance. To minimize the effect during mothers’ migration, providing education and support to left-behind families on household work management, child care, HIV/AIDS, gender violence at community levels could be essential. Moreover, retaining mothers in their local community by supporting and creating jobs would alleviate the overall negative impacts.

Keywords: Butajira, Health, Migration