It's market day in a village in the Matam region of San

ago in West Africa, an agricultural area where many of the men leave

to find work either in other African countries or overseas in Europe.

After buying food the women cure to kiosk to collect remittances, money sent by relatives working away from home.

I'm Joe Dwyer and you're listening to Left Behind on the BBC World Service.

The International Organization for Migration

estimates that migrants now make up over 3% of the world's population.

Millions leave their homes every year as economic migrants in search of jobs or better pay or a better life.

But what about those they leave behind? The families, the children, the wives and the husbands, the communities.

Through the stories of those who stay, we discover what makes the migrants leave, where

they go, whether they ever come back and what happens. migrants leave

and what happens to those they leave behind.

Migration creates a difficult situation,

says I said that.

You are always worried and lonely, but if your husband stays,

you're not able to provide for your family.

We're in three very different countries in this program, Sanagal, where it's mostly men who migrate, Guatemala from where

children and young people make perilous journeys, and Indonesia from where millions

of women leave to find work.

The realities of what is happening can only be understood through this kind of report.

The numbers in themselves cannot tell the true story.

I'm joined by international migration expert and Singleton from Bristol University in England.

...