Transnational Families in Migration and Remittances : The Case of Nigerian Migrants in South Africa

The impact of migration on families, including the migrants and the once left behind, is a pertinent issue that has been overlooked by many scholars on migration. Migration involving split families attracts significant challenges. For instance, Nigerian migrants to South Africa on the average and in relative term are seldom rated as liabilities to affected Nigerian families from a socio-political perspective where other available options of sustaining the family financially have proven futile. In all these, the value of remittances are seldom considered when analyzing the impact of migration. To interrogate this phenomenon, we collate, interpret and analyse data employed from oral evidence through carefully conducted oral interviews of selected Nigerian women migrants in Durban, South Africa, particularly those having split families on account of migration. This also includes those with traditional obligations within the African extended family structure which makes their absence pose a problem to the entire family. Also employed are data from the National Population Commission (NPC) in Nigeria, United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), The National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP) and Development Research Centre (DRC) on migration. We find that international migration has the potential to impact positively on development even at the micro or family level. Yet Nigeria has never pursued a migration or a remittance-led development strategy until recently.