APART from climate change, migration is perhaps the most critical issue of the modern times. Many young Africans are paying a high price, and dying while trying to get to Europe.
APART from climate change, migration is perhaps the most critical issue of the modern times. Many young Africans are paying a high price, and dying while trying to get to Europe.
The images of many Africans crossing and dying in the Mediterranean Sea is powerfully shown on television screens, and perhaps present a comparison of a reverse logic to the slave trade era, when Africans were captured and forced overseas as cheap labour.
Although different in context, time and space, both experiences devalue human dignity and decency, and constitute dark spots in Africa’s rich history.
To find solutions, and to help shape the global agenda on migration, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Southern Africa recently hosted a two-day consultative process on global compact for a safe, orderly and regular migration in the region.
This regional consultation on the global compact on migration, is one of the five regional consultations that will take place across the continent, to feed into the global deliberations that will take place in Mexico.
The brainstorming in Lusaka revolved around six key thematic areas of the migration question as framed by the global compact project and these include: human rights of all migrants and the issue of social inclusion and cohesion, addressing drivers of migration, international cooperation and governance of migration in all dimensions, contributions of migrants and diaspora, smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons, and irregular migration and regular pathways.
The meeting also proposed a new approach on how to handle the issue of migration.
It was also noted that migration has become a major issue that poses problems and opportunities for each country and migrants all over the world.
Setting the tone for discussions, ECA Chief, Population and Youth Social Development Policy Division William Muhwava said there is need to agree on principles, commitments and understandings between UN states regarding all dimensions of international migration.
“We also need to create a framework for comprehensive international cooperation on the subject of migration and mobility [both are undefined and undifferentiated and to deal with all aspects of international migration including humanitarian, developmental, human rights-related, among other issues],’’ he says.
But is migration by itself a problem?
ECA director of southern Africa Said Adejumobi says migration in Africa does not only assume international dimension but also intra-regional patterns as well.
He says migration from the poor to the rich countries, and from conflict to more stable countries, is a recurring pattern in Africa.
“The increasing wave of xenophobia and violent attacks on other Africans in some countries in our region is a clear manifestation that we are dealing with a problem right on our doors.
“Migration is not a new phenomenon and has been part of human history. People have moved in time and space whether in advancing trade and commerce, in search of new opportunities for better living or just out of the urge to know and discover new territories and landscapes,” Mr Adejumobi says.
Indeed, migration has been central to human and societal development and transformation. Most successful countries are either migrant nations or enjoyed the services of migrants unhindered.
So why has migration become a critical issue in modern times? What new approaches can be pursued on how to handle the issue of migration?
Despite migration becoming a major issue, and posing problems, there are immense opportunities for each country and migrants all over the world.
Citing two examples, of safe and orderly migration, Mr Adejumobi said the United States of America is an immigrant country, which has served as its source of strength, power and wealth.
“Innovation, creativity and skilled labour have all come through the doors of immigration into the United States.
Australia, another successful country, is an immigrant nation, which from 1788 when European settlement began, has welcomed people from different backgrounds and nations across the world.
“In 1945, when the Department of Immigration was established, Australia made a conscious decision of growing its population by two percent annually, of which about half were to come from immigration,” he says.
Australia in its development and transformation has no doubt benefited from migrant labour and has used it, just like Europe and the United States, to improve its infrastructure, and transform its economy into a world-class industrial one.
Nevertheless, Mr Adejumobi said the current narrative about migration is a very perverse one.
“Migration is, by and large, criminalised. Migrants are either viewed as job searchers, perpetrators of crimes, drug pushers, crooks, and in some instances, labelled as terrorists.
“These stereotypes deny positive agency to migration, which has fuelled human civilisation and development. In finding solutions, we should think globally on the migration question, we should design policies and act locally,” he says.
In her opening remarks, Ministry of Home Affairs permanent secretary Elwyn Chomba says African migration is not accurately portrayed as evidence that intra-African migration dominates migration flows on the continent at 82 percent and only a small proportion of Africans migrate to Europe at 12 percent and other continents at six percent.
“Despite the disadvantages that migrations brings about such as brain drain associated with the migration of, for example, engineers, teachers, doctors and nurses, it also offers immense benefits such as facilitating trade, investment, and transfers of technology.
“As a continent, we need to reflect how we are handling the issue of migration as it is one of the vehicles for Africa’s structural transformation and development,” Professor Chomba said.
The economic transformation of Africa, creating jobs and opportunities for the increasing young population, and rekindling their hope in the African dream, must begin on the continent.
If the search for peace, security, good governance and development are central to changing the options and possibilities that African people have, then the continent should implement these so that its people are no longer referred to as migrants but tourists, the same narrative that has now emerged about countries like China.
Fonte: Zambia Daily Mail – 20/10/2017
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