Totaled together as the sum of small sacrifices, remittances which begin as simple financial transfers from an immigrant or a migrant worker thousands of miles away to their families back home are not only lifeblood to their relatives and communities in the home country, but also are frequently critical to the entire national economy of whole countries. Yet removed by a generation or more, the first response is almost always, “What is a remittance?” Perhaps that is natural, but more disturbing is that entire governments and their national banking systems, who know too well the importance of remittances both domestically and internationally, often ignore the predatory, irregular, and perilous nature of these transfers for people who are often not citizens with any voice or simply workers passing through and easily forgotten and expended. The simple answer to the question of remittances is that they are transfers of money from workers and relatives to families in the home country. After that everything becomes more complicated, and that is what ACORN International is examining in this report.

Posted May 9, 2013