Until\na month ago, Diana Leticia Hern\u00e1ndez sold face cream door to door in Miami. Her\nhusband painted houses. The money fed their family and at least six relatives\nin Honduras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hern\u00e1ndez\nhas sold nothing since last month due to fear and social-distancing\nrestrictions in South Florida. Her husband hasn’t worked either. This month,\nfor the first time since shortly after their arrival in the United States 16\nyears ago, they weren’t able to send home about $300 to help their families\nwith food, rent, medicine and school bills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nthe Honduran town of Villa Nueva Cortez, Hern\u00e1ndez’s mother Teonila Murillo is\nrunning out of money to buy insulin for her diabetes, and Hern\u00e1ndez’s brother\ndoesn’t know if he’ll be able to make his $60 rent next month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m\ndoing really badly,” Murillo told The Associated Press. “There’s no\nmoney, and no work. If you get sick here, you die.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\ndevastation wrought by COVID-19 across the developed world in cutting into the\nfinancial lifelines for people across Latin America, Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nWorld Bank estimates that a record $529 billion was transferred to developing\ncountries through official channels in 2018, the latest year for which figures\nare available. Billions more moved unrecorded in cash. Many of those\nremittances are sent home by people who work in service jobs or occupations,\nlike day labor, that have no monthly paycheck and are worst affected by the\nglobal downtown. Some also comes from illegal immigrants ineligible for part of\nthe massive aid packages uncorked by advanced economies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With\ncoronavirus shutting down industries, many earners in Miami, Las Vegas, London,\nand other economic centers can no longer afford to send their monthly $50, $100\nor $200 to Honduras, Somalia or India. The shock waves are pushing their\nrelatives to desperation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m\nin anguish,” said Hern\u00e1ndez, 45. “They’re counting on me. I’m trying to\nget anything I can send, $30, $50, whatever.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across\nAfrica, where remittances have grown to surpass foreign aid and direct foreign\ninvestment and some $82 billion flowed in during 2018 alone, untold millions of\npeople are already feeling the pinch. One money-transfer company in Europe\nsending funds to Africa saw an 80 percent drop in volume in a single week, the\nWashington-based Center for Financial Inclusion said last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nSomalia Abdalla Sabdow, a former security guard and a father of six, made his\nway through Mogadishu last week to check on the $200 he receives monthly from\nhis cousin Yusuf Ahmed, a taxi driver in the U.S. But the money was late. His\ncousin, like many in the U.S., had been confined to his home for almost three\nweeks, unable to work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I\ncame back empty-handed,” an anxious-looking Sabdow said, after peering\nunder the partition as workers, one wearing a face mask and gloves, fanned\nthrough stacks of crisp $100 bills. “I asked the counter to double-check\nmy name, but nothing has been forthcoming. Time is running out … It is very\ndistressing.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With\nthree of his small children piled onto his lap at home, he worried about\nfalling behind in rent, no small thing in a city where camps of hundreds of\nthousands of internally displaced people are a constant reminder of the\nfragility of circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This\nmonth we had a big problem,” his cousin, Ahmed, later explained by phone.\nHe hoped to send the money the following week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remittances\nmake up more than 5% of GDP in at least 13 African nations, sometimes far more,\nthe Brookings Institution said last month. Kenya’s remittances are now its\nlargest source of foreign exchange, its president said in December. More than a\nthird of all remittances to Africa come from the European Union, and other\nsignificant sources are North America, Gulf nations and other African\ncountries. Informal remittances, though not tracked in World Bank and other\ndata, are estimated to be the source of billions of dollars more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We’re\ngoing to begin to see a contraction in the economy,” said Olayinka\nDavid-West, a professor at the Lagos Business School in Nigeria, said in a\nrecent seminar held by the Center for Financial Inclusion. Africa’s top oil\nproducer is also the biggest recipient of remittances in sub-Saharan Africa,\nwith the money exceeding its revenues from petroleum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Central\nAmerica, a region heavily dependent on remittances from the United States,\ncould see a 20 percent drop, from $23.9 billion last year to $19.12 billion\nthis year, said Jonathan Mencos, director of the Central American Institute of\nFiscal Studies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across\nall of Latin American and the Caribbean, remittances from the U.S. could drop\nbetween 7% and 18% this year, from last year’s $75 billion total, according to\nthe Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“‘It\nis a wide range, and the largest drop may be more accurate unfortunately,”\nsaid Dr. Manuel Orozco, director of migration, remittances and development at\nthe think tank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nthe largely indigenous Guatemalan town of Joyabaj, half of the 100,000\nresidents depend on remittances, almost all from the U.S. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rosa\nL\u00f3pez, 18, left a money-transfer office last week holding her 2-year-old son\nand $100 sent by her sister, who works at a dairy in Texas. The dairy has cut\nworking hours in half, forcing the sister to cut back the money she sends.\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nmoney that came last week will allow L\u00f3pez and seven other relatives to buy\nrice, beans and other basics, but they may have to stop paying the light and\nwater bills, she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We\nneed to figure out a way not to die of hunger,” L\u00f3pez said. “She’s\nthe only one who’s helping the entire family.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One\nof the most remittance-dependent countries in the world is Haiti, where $3\nbillion in money sent from abroad makes up about 30 percent of the gross\ndomestic product. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juliette\nAndre, a 25-year-old nursing student in Port-au-Prince, used to receive $150\nmonthly from her aunt who cares for elderly people in Brooklyn, New York. In\nMarch, Andre received a total of $50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That\ndoesn’t represent anything in Haiti because the cost of living\nquadrupled,” she said last week. “We are going to be struggling for a\nwhile.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asia\nis the top recipient of remittances in the world, with India getting the largest\namount in the world in 2018 at $79 billion, followed by China at $67 billion,\naccording to the World Bank. The Philippines is also in the top five recipients\nof remittances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nIndia, the southern state of Kerala accounts for almost 19% of the total\nremittances to the country. Tens of thousands from the state work in various\nGulf countries and send money home. The tourism-reliant local economy has been\nbadly hurt by the 21-day lock-down across India and the families who depend on\nremittance money are growing concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nthe last month, Sajeela Mol, a 36-year-old homemaker in Kerala’s Mallapuram\ndistrict , has not received any money from her husband Shabeer Ali, who works\nat a fast-food restaurant in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Mol lives with her four school-age\nchildren and an ailing mother-in-law. The family is dependent on the $150 her\nhusband sends every month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With\nthe restaurant shut due to the lockdown, Mol said her husband is unsure if he\nwill receive his salary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If\nmy husband has no money, I don’t know what will he send home for his\nfamily,” said Mol. \n\n\n\n\n\nSource: Voice\nof America\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"