tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/africa-refugees-28561/articlesAfrica refugees – The Conversation2023-06-05T14:24:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2062142023-06-05T14:24:32Z2023-06-05T14:24:32ZEthiopia’s musicians fled the country after the 1974 revolution - how their culture lives on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529105/original/file-20230530-15-npdb81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A procession in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">J. Countess/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The overthrow of Ethiopian emperor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Haile-Selassie-I">Haile Selassie</a> in 1974 led to violent conflict that had a particularly heavy impact on musicians. <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo114656431.html">Sing and Sing On: Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora</a> is the first study of the forced migration of musicians out of the Horn of Africa dating from the revolution. The book traces their struggles and what happened to their rich and diverse music traditions when they settled in the US. Ethnomusicologist Kay Kaufman Shelemay talks about her book.</em></p>
<h2>What happened to cause musicians to leave Ethiopia?</h2>
<p>Musicians were part of a mass <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/ethiopia-origin-refugees-evolving-migration">outflow</a> of people from the Horn of Africa that began as a direct outcome of the Ethiopian revolution. They fled <a href="https://humanityhouse.org/en/rampen-conflicten-ethiopie-burgeroorlog-1974-1991/">due to</a> the overthrow of the government, fear of the revolutionary Marxist military regime, and extreme violence across the country – as well as a civil war with Eritrea. Many refugees were Ethiopian Orthodox Christians from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amhara">Amhara</a> ethnic group that had historically been close to circles of power.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover featuring a photo of a man in a suit and hat looking out from a train." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Oromo musician Ali Birra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michel Temteme/University of Chicago Press</span></span>
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<p>The conflict caused bloodshed across a region already destabilised by drought and famine. Waves of refugees crossed into Sudan and Kenya, from where many eventually made their way to destinations around the world. </p>
<p>The revolution had a particularly strong impact on musicians in all genres. They feared imprisonment and forced musical activity by the revolutionary regime. The military junta nationalised urban and rural land, property and businesses. It disbanded most established musical ensembles and imposed strong censorship. This was due, in part, to concern about the power of music to encourage resistance. New, explicitly revolutionary musical groups and organisations were established to support their new programmes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-astonishing-life-and-music-of-emahoy-tsegue-maryam-guebrou-the-ethiopian-nun-whos-died-at-99-202853">The astonishing life and music of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, the Ethiopian nun who's died at 99</a>
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<p>Most musical performances were halted by curfews. Prohibitions against public gatherings rendered musicians unable to earn a living. The highly trained musicians of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church experienced a great loss of prestige along with severe economic pressures. These stemmed from the nationalisation of church resources. </p>
<h2>How did you go about researching their stories?</h2>
<p>I arrived in Ethiopia to carry out research for my doctoral dissertation in ethnomusicology in 1973. As outlined in my <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p064326">memoir</a>, I was able to remain in Addis Ababa during the first two years of the revolution. There I witnessed the violence and the cessation of public musical life. I noticed a growing number of surreptitious departures.</p>
<p>When I returned to the US in early 1976, I encountered the first wave of those refugees. While I had gone to Ethiopia to study its musical life, by 1977, these musicians were now settling in all around me. I began to visit newly founded Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches as well as new Ethiopian restaurants and shops. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A main Addis Ababa street leading to the airport, Bole Road, with high-rise buildings and a billboard featuring a restaurant advert showing a woman in Ethiopian robes pouring coffee into rows of cups." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A billboard in Addis Ababa advertises an Ethiopian restaurant in the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kay Kaufman Shelemay</span></span>
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<p>Over decades, I visited many Ethiopian communities across the US, I attended diaspora concerts and collected Ethiopian CDs released in North America, I interviewed musicians about their lives and immigrant experiences. I wanted to document the role of music in new Ethiopian communities in the US. </p>
<h2>What role did musicians play in Ethiopia?</h2>
<p>The powerful role of Ethiopian musicians both at home and abroad has led me to term these individuals “sentinel musicians”. I coined this phrase after repeatedly witnessing the way in which these musicians, past and present, both guarded and guided the communities they were a part of. </p>
<p>The word “sentinel” was also inspired by the bravery of musicians who historically accompanied Ethiopian troops into battle. Emperor Selassie had established the Imperial Bodyguard Orchestra and a jazz band as part of his elite personal militia. </p>
<p>Singers and instrumentalists have long been acknowledged as pivotal figures in Ethiopia. They guided the transmission and performance of cultural traditions in domains from worship to entertainment while offering inspiration and comfort during times of hardship. </p>
<h2>How was this role continued in the diaspora?</h2>
<p>The role of the musician in society is heightened in times of conflict and forced migration, when music and its performance could convey controversial meanings. In Ethiopian languages, there is the practice of employing double meanings in songs, masking the true intent of a text. This practice, termed “wax and gold”, is found in Ethiopian religious and secular poetry, in everyday speech, and in many song lyrics. </p>
<p>The wax is the obvious outer meaning of the words while the gold is the meaning hidden within. The term is borrowed from the “lost wax process” of casting smelted gold in wax moulds. Composers and traditional improvisational singers disguise the meaning of their songs, masking critical or controversial information.</p>
<p>In the diaspora, some sentinel musicians have continued to employ wax and gold, but musicians’ roles have also expanded to incorporate new and different significances.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A band on stage with a man in Ethiopian robes in the centre, an arm raised and a smile on his face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed performs in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>Some have quite literally served as “sentinel stars”. They led the way to new locales, established transnational networks and founded new institutions – cultural organisations, churches, restaurants and clubs – undertaking initiatives in community building. Moreover, musicians have offered emotional support and healing to their displaced communities through their music.</p>
<p>All genres of Ethiopian music, from sacred to secular, have had to adapt creatively to their new homes abroad. Some diaspora musicians, like Ethiopian-Canadian singer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/the-Weeknd">Abel Tesfaye</a> (<a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-weeknd-changes-name-on-social-media-after-vowing-to-kill-his-alter-ego-3444262#:%7E:text=The%20Weeknd%20has%20changed%20his,kill%22%20his%20alter%2Dego.&text=The%20Canadian%20pop%20star%20rolled,Tesfaye%2C%20instead%20of%20The%20Weeknd.">formerly</a> The Weeknd), have innovated personal styles that have risen to the top of global charts. Throughout the global diaspora, Ethiopian traditional music associated with different ethnic communities actively survives and is performed at events such as weddings and holiday parties. </p>
<p>At the same time, Ethiopian musicians of many different backgrounds both at home and in the diaspora perform international musical styles, ranging from jazz to reggae to rap. These are often inflected by distinctive Ethiopian melodies and rhythms. Some new musical repertories have emerged that are shared by Ethiopians at home and abroad, notably the performance of vernacular hymns that became popular during the revolution. They are sung internationally in Ethiopian churches by choirs of women and girls. </p>
<h2>Why do their stories matter?</h2>
<p>Musicians’ stories shed new light on the plight of refugees and the process of forced migration, providing a fuller understanding of the powerful role of music and musicians within rapidly changing societies. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hachalu-hundessa-charismatic-musician-who-wasnt-afraid-to-champion-ethiopias-oromo-142062">Hachalu Hundessa: charismatic musician who wasn't afraid to champion Ethiopia's Oromo</a>
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<p>Musicians use music and its performance to bring people together and to establish and sustain community values and moral standards. Through their stories and lived experiences, we can appreciate the impact of musical creativity, and the ways it is often deployed against formidable odds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kay Kaufman Shelemay received fellowships and grants for the research and publication process for this book from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; and Harvard University. I held residential fellowships at the Stanford University Humanities Center; the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Center; The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study of Harvard University; and the Chair in Modern Culture at the John W. Kluge Center, The Library of Congress.</span></em></p>Musicians established themselves in the US, where they continued to practice their cultural life, which flourished.Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1837412022-06-05T07:20:17Z2022-06-05T07:20:17ZThe award-winning African documentary project that goes inside the lives of migrants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465471/original/file-20220526-23-9tw5pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Last Shelter plays out at a migrant shelter on the southern edge of the Sahara desert.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy Generation Africa/STEPS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For far too long the west has been telling stories about and talking on behalf of Africa. However, a new slate of 25 documentary films by African filmmakers called <a href="https://www.generationafrica.co.za">Generation Africa</a> is currently making waves at international film festivals and is set to shift perspectives about migration in and from the continent. </p>
<p>It’s the latest initiative by a Cape Town-based organisation called <a href="https://steps.co.za">STEPS</a>. For 20 years the NGO has been an innovator in using film as a tool for social change and in developing talent from the continent. They produce ambitious theme-based collections of films that engage with pressing issues, in this case migration. The 25 new documentaries present diverse and nuanced insider perspectives of people moving both between African countries and from Africa.</p>
<p>Filmmakers from around Africa were invited to submit proposals for films specifically to address the missing perspective of Africans on this contentious global issue. Several of the films have been completed, among them ones that have been gathering media <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/generation-africa-the-young-face-of-african-cinema/a-60723861">attention</a> for high profile film festival selections and awards. The Last Shelter (Mali) had its world premiere at <a href="https://cphdox.dk/">CPH:DOX</a> in Denmark in 2021, where it also won the Dox:Award, the top prize at this festival. No U-Turn (Nigeria) received a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.news24.com/channel/movies/news/generation-africa-film-no-u-turn-recognised-at-berlinale-20220222&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1653387231615205&usg=AOvVaw3SW0uRikbmtwkjS0MODJpp">Special Mention</a> from the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in February. No Simple Way Home (South Sudan) has recently won the DOK.horizonte <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dokfest-muenchen.de/Awards?lang%3Den&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1653387231639829&usg=AOvVaw1_ujDh21-ZXLQ_c516xD4j">prize</a> at DOK.fest Munchen. </p>
<p>Premiering at one of these A-list festivals would be a crowning achievement for a documentary from anywhere in the world. But festival success is merely the beginning of the plans for these films. From the start, STEPS wanted compelling stories that would offer images of Africans as active change-makers shaping their own destinies, whether they chose to move within the continent or out of it, whether to stay abroad or return.</p>
<h2>Social change</h2>
<p><a href="https://steps.co.za">STEPS</a> stands for Social Transformation and Empowerment Projects. The organisation laid the groundwork in South Africa for what was then called outreach by many and is now referred to as <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2022/03/countering-the-narrrative">impact producing</a>, the design and implementation of a social change strategy with a film at its centre.</p>
<p>Its first programme in 2001, <a href="https://steps.co.za/projects/steps-for-the-future/">STEPS for the Future</a>, focused on Southern African stories about people living with HIV/AIDS and pioneered the use of mobile cinemas to get films to hard-to-reach rural and semi-urban audiences. Though it often makes shorter films collaboratively with communities, STEPS also boasts a long history of high profile international successes, like co-producing the 2008 <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/sa-produced-doccie-wins-oscar-20080225">Oscar-winning</a> documentary <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0854678/">Taxi to the Dark Side</a> as part of its <a href="https://steps.co.za/projects/why-democracy/">Why Democracy</a> slate of 27 films.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-film-is-fighting-the-erasure-of-south-african-activist-dulcie-september-165895">How a film is fighting the erasure of South African activist Dulcie September</a>
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<p>STEPS intends that each of the Generation Africa documentaries has an impact campaign designed to effect targeted social change centred on the issues raised in the film. Socio-political, economic and climate change crises drive many Africans to move to new countries as migrants, refugees or asylum-seekers. Many of the Generation Africa films have the potential to help lobby for policy change, raise money or secure material support for affected communities. </p>
<p>The STEPS method relies on creating meaningful conversations through holding audience engagements after a screening. These sometimes include filmmakers and participants from the films and are aimed at influencing social change at individual, community and policy level. </p>
<h2>Three of the new films</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14574478/">The Last Shelter</a> centres on several characters at the House of Migrants on the edge of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Sahara-desert-Africa">Sahara</a> desert in the city of Gao in Mali. Some are about to undertake a perilous attempt to cross the desert, others seek shelter after failing to. It’s clear that Malian filmmaker <a href="https://www.idfa.nl/en/article/154845/how-ousmane-samassekou-turned-a-personal-story-into-the-award-winning-film-the-last-shelter">Ousmane Sammassekou</a> had privileged access to the people of the shelter. </p>
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<span class="caption">No U Turn (Nigeria).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Generation Africa/STEPS</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17079294/">No U-Turn</a>, directed by <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-nollywood-to-new-nollywood-the-story-of-nigerias-runaway-success-47959">Nollywood</a> producer <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/berlin-film-festival-ike-nnaebue/?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1">Ike Nnaebue</a>, is structured around the migration journey he himself took as a young man travelling from Nigeria to Morocco, dreaming of Europe.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17079296/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">No Simple Way Home</a> by <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/berlinale-akuol-de-mabior/">Akuol de Mabior</a> reflects on her parents, who are past and present political leaders in South Sudan. She explores her own complicated relationship to the country.</p>
<p>Through attention to structure and storytelling, the Generation Africa films provide new insights by revealing the personal stories, circumstances, challenges and achievements of some of the individuals behind the anonymous statistics on migration. The films are able to move audiences in such a way that there is the potential to effect change. But impact strategy relies on much more than simply screening a film. </p>
<h2>Impact strategies</h2>
<p>To kickstart their impact strategy design, STEPS hosted an “impact lab” with the Generation Africa filmmakers. Best practice was explored on topics like facilitating audience conversations, working with partner organisations, creating impact goals for activist filmmakers, engaging with policy makers. </p>
<p>The Last Shelter’s impact producer, Giulia Boccato-Borne, has already commenced an impact campaign. The film provides a meaningful way to initiate conversations with potential migrants before they leave their home country. And also with communities who put pressure on young people to migrate in order to support their extended families financially. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465470/original/file-20220526-13-lkanmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women in the foreground standing with a small group of women, all looking back at something." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465470/original/file-20220526-13-lkanmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465470/original/file-20220526-13-lkanmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465470/original/file-20220526-13-lkanmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465470/original/file-20220526-13-lkanmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465470/original/file-20220526-13-lkanmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465470/original/file-20220526-13-lkanmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465470/original/file-20220526-13-lkanmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">No Simple Way Home (South Sudan).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Generation Africa/STEPS</span></span>
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<p>A specific goal at an individual level is to help Esther, a 16-year-old girl in the film running from a home situation so bad she chose to rather risk walking across the desert. She crossed to Algeria successfully after the film was shot but then fell into the hands of human traffickers. Khadidja Benouataf, one of the impact team, used her Algerian connections to find the girl and place her in foster care. They are working on securing asylum for her.</p>
<p>No U-Turn, which is still in the initial stages of impact strategy design, plays particularly well to a European audience as it reveals the dreams and goals that drive individuals to migrate. After watching the film it is much harder to see migration from Africa as a systemic problem that has to be ‘fixed’. One is, instead, invited to dream with each of the characters during the road trip vignettes that make up the film. The director reflects towards the end: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The countries of our birth do not allow us enough opportunities to dream. So we cross to the next border, hoping there will be space for our dreams there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No Simple Way Home’s impact campaign has been supported by influential organisations like DocuBox Kenya, DocSociety, The Good Pitch and The Wickers. Their community screenings in South Sudan will kick off in July, led by impact producer Jacob Bul. Impact goals include opening intergenerational conversations around South Sudan’s future and solidifying women’s roles in leadership in Africa. </p>
<p>By contributing to conversations in Africa and globally about identity and home and the experience of being physically detached from your country of origin, the Generation Africa films play a role in shifting the contemporary narrative about migration and the people who move from country to country, and continent to continent, dreaming of a better future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liani Maasdorp is affiliated with the Documentary Filmmakers' Association (DFA).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Cain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lifting awards at film festivals is just the start of the journey for documentaries like The Last Shelter (Mali), No U-Turn (Nigeria) and No Simple Way Home (South Sudan).Liani Maasdorp, Senior lecturer in Screen Production and Film and Television Studies, University of Cape TownJulia Cain, Lecturer in Screen Production and Film Theory & Practice, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/944412018-04-09T12:43:02Z2018-04-09T12:43:02ZBenjamin Netanyahu’s U-turn: no redemption for asylum seekers in Israel<p>For <a href="https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2018/02/02/deportation-of-eritrean-and-sudanese-asylum-seekers-from-israel-and-the-legality-of-relocation-transfer-agreements/">35,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers</a> living in Israel, Passover in 2018 was an inverse journey of redemption. </p>
<p>The Israeli government had <a href="https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/news/voluntary_return_operation">announced plans</a> in January to indefinitely detain or forcibly “relocate” thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers to undisclosed third countries in Sub-Saharan Africa – should they refuse to leave voluntarily by March 31. They were each to receive a lump sum payment of US$3,500. But following a legal challenge mid-March the Israeli Supreme Court <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-temporarily-halts-deportation-of-african-migrants/">issued a temporary injunction</a> preventing forced deportation, pending the state’s response. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/threat-of-expulsion-hangs-over-thousands-of-eritreans-who-sought-refuge-in-israel-and-the-us-87898">Threat of expulsion hangs over thousands of Eritreans who sought refuge in Israel and the US</a>
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<p>On April 2, days before the state’s response was due, a bombshell dropped: the forced deportations were called off. The state had instead reached an agreement with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2018/4/5ac261bd4/unhcr-israel-sign-agreement-find-solutions-eritreans-sudanese.html">agreement</a>, rather than <a href="https://theconversation.com/anger-mounts-as-israel-begins-detention-and-deportation-of-african-asylum-seekers-92076">face a choice</a> between deportation to a “third state” and indefinite detention, at least 16,250 Eritrean and Sudanese were to be resettled with UNHCR’s assistance in “Western countries” under “various programmes, including sponsorship, resettlement, family reunion and labour migration schemes”. For those remaining in Israel, temporary residence, for five years, coupled with vocational training and a new right to work was to be substituted for their “infiltrator” status. A new agency, tasked with the “rehabilitation” of southern Tel Aviv, where the largest number of asylum seekers currently live, was to be set up, and asylum seekers were to be dispersed throughout the state.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2018/Pages/Israel-reaches-common-understanding-with-UNHCR-2-April-2018.aspx">press conference</a>, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, implied that the forced deportation plan fell through because the “third country” to which asylum seekers were to be deported – which he now openly admitted was Rwanda – had backed out. This pronouncement set the scene for his <em>volte face</em>, five hours later, when he then announced the <a href="https://twitter.com/IsraelMFA/status/981067293403820038">suspension of the agreement with UNHCR</a>, followed by its <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2018/4/5ac394644/unhcr-statement-regarding-cancellation-israel-unhcr-agreement.html">cancellation</a> the next day. </p>
<p>So for a precious few hours on April 2, Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers were not labelled by the Israeli government as “infiltrators”, but as “<a href="http://www.pmo.gov.il/English/MediaCenter/Spokesman/Pages/spoke_refugees020418.aspx">protected populations</a>” whose <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2632503">precarious legal status</a> was to be regularised. In light of the cancellation of the agreement with UNHCR, however, the regularisation plans are off, too, and the “infiltrator” label is <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-pm-accuses-new-israel-fund-of-foiling-asylum-seeker-deal-with-rwanda-1.5975316">back</a>.</p>
<p>The anxiety of Israel’s asylum seekers then intensified when the state <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/19yrgf54NhoC8mVgAOio0ypmZc3okB8eCAewMpiO34AY/mobilebasic">updated</a> the Supreme Court that “the possibility remains of deportation to the second third state with whom agreement was signed by the state with respect to the removal of infiltrators”. It’s assumed that this country is Uganda, based in part on a tape recording of the <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-can-t-keep-track-of-deportees-to-rwanda-uganda-official-admit-1.5797312">deputy foreign minister</a> admitting so. </p>
<p>Given the prospects of forced deportation to this “second third state”, Israel refuses to release over 200 asylum seekers detained in Saharonim, a prison in the Israeli Negev near the Egyptian border. The detainees previously refused to leave voluntarily. Having started the Passover period hoping that, for them, it would mean liberation, the detainees’ hopes were shattered. </p>
<p>On April 10, the Supreme Court will hold a hearing to determine whether to lift the temporary injunction and effectively allow forced deportation to the “second third state”. The stakes could not be higher.</p>
<h2>A calculated U-turn</h2>
<p>The agreement Israel made with UNHCR was a rare win-win situation. It was a much belated acknowledgement of Israel’s protection obligations, and gave proper legal status and rights to Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers, in Israel or elsewhere. It would also have alleviated the hardship of south Tel Aviv’s Israeli residents in an area where the largest number of asylum seekers currently live. Highly unusually, the UNHCR was to assist in resettlement from a “global north” country, <a href="https://data.oecd.org/israel.htm">with a GDP per capita of over US$37,000</a>, currently hosting asylum seekers to the tune of less than 0.4% of its population.</p>
<p>But Netanyahu’s Facebook followers “flooded” his page with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Netanyahu/">angry comments</a> at the agreement with UNHCR. In their footsteps <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-suspends-new-asylum-seeker-deal-with-un-1.5974186">promptly followed</a> the leaders of Netanyahu’s two main coalition partners, Naftali Bennett of “The Jewish Home” party and Moshe Kahlon of the “Kulanu” party, as well as prominent members of his own party, who demanded that the agreement be called off.</p>
<p>Netanyahu’s political calculus was clear: the loss incurred by his U-turn and the ensuing <a href="https://twitter.com/EUinIsrael/status/980907127819644928?s=04">reputational damage to Israel in the international arena</a> was offset by the aversion of domestic political troubles. Announcing the cancellation of the agreement with UNHCR, Netanyahu then <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-pm-accuses-new-israel-fund-of-foiling-asylum-seeker-deal-with-rwanda-1.5975316">accused</a> “the New Israel Fund, with European support” of having conspired to pressure Rwanda to back down, and called for a parliamentary inquiry into the influence of foreign actors in Israeli politics. The <a href="http://www.newisraelfund.org.uk/">New Israel Fund</a> (NIF) is a philanthropic organisation working to support civil society projects in Israel.</p>
<p>Netanyahu’s statement, which drew links between the question of refugees, the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/01/boycott-divestment-sanctions-bds-170110165203991.html">“boycott, divestment and sanctions” movement</a>, and the Israel-Palestine conflict, was intended to serve as a rallying cry for his political base. The accusations were promptly <a href="http://www.newisraelfund.org.uk/news/when-netanyahu-attacks-to-deflect-attention-we-stand-proud/">rebuffed by the NIF</a> and, indeed, by <a href="https://twitter.com/onduhungirehe/status/981623787941744640">the Rwandan government</a>. Over 1,500 Israelis expressed their dismay at Netanyahu’s claims by making individual contributions to the NIF. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anger-mounts-as-israel-begins-detention-and-deportation-of-african-asylum-seekers-92076">Anger mounts as Israel begins detention and deportation of African asylum seekers</a>
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<p>What Netanyahu failed to acknowledge, was that the deportation plans had prompted unprecedented reactions from Israeli civil society, Jewish communities the world over, and the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2017/11/5a0f27484/unhcr-concerned-israels-refugee-relocation-proposals.html">UNHCR</a>. Demonstrations (both <a href="https://twitter.com/No2Deportation">physical and virtual</a>) took place <a href="https://twitter.com/No2Deportation/status/967483233976946690">domestically</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/972mag/status/961231326044151808">globally</a> demanded that Rwanda refuse to accept asylum seekers who were forcibly removed from Israel. </p>
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<p>Given the speculation that Uganda is “the second third state”, demonstrations are <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/359635141210577/">scheduled to take place</a> in the coming days near its embassies. The foreign affairs minister of Uganda, Henry Okello Oryem, colourfully stated <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/uganda-no-deal-with-israel-for-them-to-dump-their-refugees-here-1.5976136">on April 4</a> that: “We [Uganda] do not have a contract, any understanding, formal or informal, with Israel for them to dump their refugees here.”</p>
<p>Whether or not different countries adhere to their international refugee law obligations is justifiably of interest to the international community. The <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.pdf">preamble to the 1951 refugee convention</a> explicitly recognises its “international scope”. It appears that, publicly shaming states, domestically and internationally, into respecting their protection obligations is an important tool in fighting for human rights. Just ask Netanyahu.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruvi Ziegler is a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute</span></em></p>A day after agreeing a deal on resettling African asylum seekers with the UNHCR rather than forcibly deporting them, Israel announced the deal was off.Ruvi Ziegler, Associate Professor in International Refugee Law, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920672018-02-20T10:25:02Z2018-02-20T10:25:02ZKenyan study sheds new light on gap between refugees and host communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207000/original/file-20180219-116351-1yrl77v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Turkana woman buys food from a refugee woman in Kakuma camp in north western Kenya. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Refugee Studies Centre</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Refugees are increasingly regarded as a development issue, rather than simply a focus for humanitarian aid. This reflects the fact that 84% of the world’s refugees are in <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2016">low and middle-income countries</a>, <a href="http://www.urban-refugees.org">more than half live in urban areas</a> alongside host country nationals, and that indefinite dependency on humanitarian aid is now regarded as <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=23569">undesirable and unsustainable</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/300094/refuge">Helping refugees to help themselves</a> through jobs, education, and other forms of economic inclusion is now mainstream refugee policy. And development actors like the World Bank are <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25855">part of the institutional landscape</a>.</p>
<p>But this leads to an important question: how different are refugees and local host communities in development terms? To what extent do refugees require distinctive development policies or can they simply be included within existing national development plans? If indeed the objective of the Sustainable Development Goals is to <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs">“leave no one behind”</a>, we need to understand whether refugees are being left behind – and if so, how.</p>
<p>This is the focus of a newly-published <a href="https://www.refugee-economies.org/assets/downloads/Refugee-Economies-Kenya-Report-web.pdf">report</a>, the first study to systematically compare socio-economic outcomes for refugees and local host communities. The research, by Oxford University’s <a href="http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/">Refugee Studies Centre</a>, focuses on Kenya. It’s a country typical of many low-income host countries in that it formally limits refugees’ right to work and freedom of movement. </p>
<p>Kenya’s nearly 500,000 refugees are mainly <a href="http://reporting.unhcr.org/node/2537">distributed across three sites</a>: the Dadaab and Kakuma camps, and the capital city Nairobi. The last two are the focus of the new report, which draws on research that will eventually form part of a broader multi-country, multi-year dataset. In addition to Kenya, the study will also focus on Uganda and Ethiopia, and will <a href="http://www.refugee-economies.org/">follow refugees and host communities over time</a>.</p>
<p>Based on interviews with more than 4,300 refugees and host community members, our new report reveals a complex picture. Neither refugees nor hosts inevitably do better; the “development gap” and the reasons behind it are more nuanced. The report compares and explains refugees’ and host communities’ welfare outcomes in three areas: livelihoods, living standards, and subjective well-being.</p>
<h2>Gaps between refugees and hosts</h2>
<p>In Kakuma camp, refugees are actually better off than the surrounding host population. For example, even though they have comparable employment levels, working refugees’ self-reported median income is higher than for the local Turkana (around $55 per month compared to under $25 per month). Refugees also have better diets, higher consumption and more assets. </p>
<p>Despite the gap, the Turkana hosts benefit immensely from the refugee presence; they rely on refugees as customers for their meat, firewood, and charcoal and are sometimes offered work with relief organisations. </p>
<p>In Nairobi, although refugees are better off than they would be in camps, they are worse off than the local host population across almost all metrics. For example, comparing Somali refugees with local hosts, the employment levels are 44% and 60% and the income gap is $150 per month compared to $200 per month. Refugees do worse across all other living standards indicators.</p>
<p>The picture that emerges from Kenya is that in camps refugees may sometimes be better off than surrounding hosts. This is partly because of the socio-economic base offered by international support. In the city, refugees find informal economic activity and do better than they would in camps, but they are still likely to be worse off than local citizens.</p>
<p>Four sets of factors seem to explain these gaps between refugees and hosts: regulation (how you are governed), networks (who you know), capital (what you have), and identity (who you are). In some cases these factors may advantage refugees. In other cases they may disadvantage refugees relative to hosts. These are the factors that distinguish the socio-economic lives of refugees from those of host communities.</p>
<h2>The four factors unpacked</h2>
<p><strong>Regulation:</strong> Refugees are often disadvantaged, and we show the cost to refugees of these restrictions. In Kakuma, refugee entrepreneurs are disproportionately likely to incur a formal “business tax”. This is paid by 30% of Somali businesses compared to 10% of local Turkana businesses. In addition, only 10% of the Turkana pay police bribes compared to 54% of South Sudanese, 43% of Congolese, and 23% of Somalis.</p>
<p><strong>Networks:</strong> Having crossed borders, refugees often have better transnational links. Remittances are the most obvious manifestation. Although not all refugees benefit equally, Somalis receive the highest levels of remittances of any surveyed group in either Nairobi or Turkana County. At least 43% of Somali refugees in Nairobi receive remittances, at a level more than twice that of local hosts. These transfers are identified as an important source of start-up capital for businesses.</p>
<p><strong>Capital:</strong> Refugees are often unable to access loans and bank accounts, making business start-up reliant upon informal sources. But on human and physical capital, education and health, outcomes are better in the camp context for refugees than local hosts. For example, in Kakuma, refugees have an average of 6.4 years of education compared to just 2.4 years for the Turkana. In the city, refugees generally face worse outcomes than hosts across all three forms of capital.</p>
<p><strong>Identity</strong>. Refugees’ different ethnic and religious identities can be an economically mixed blessing. They can facilitate in-group trust. But the same differences may also lead to discrimination.</p>
<p>The key takeaway is that refugees are economically distinctive compared to host communities – but not always just in negative ways. </p>
<h2>Improvements for both groups</h2>
<p>Our research identifies the factors that may lead to development gaps between refugees and hosts. Expanding opportunities, reducing constraints, and levelling the playing field in these four areas may offer a way to make both groups better off, and improve relations between them. </p>
<p>Three practical insights stand out. </p>
<p>First, even in a country with restricted regulations, refugees are economically active. Second, an important and neglected source of social protection for refugees come from refugees’ own activities and networks. Third, refugees’ and hosts’ economic lives are interdependent: a good refugee policy must also be a good host community policy. </p>
<p>To ensure that no one is left behind, every major refugee-hosting context should have an economic policy and strategy specifically for refugees and the immediate host community, based on robust analysis and consultation. Refugee policy may well be a humanitarian issue but it is also a development issue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Refugee Economies Programme, at the University of Oxford, is supported by the IKEA Foundation</span></em></p>Refugee policy may well be a humanitarian issue. But it is also a development issue.Alexander Betts, Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/878982017-11-23T15:01:36Z2017-11-23T15:01:36ZThreat of expulsion hangs over thousands of Eritreans who sought refuge in Israel and the US<p>Bahabolom must be one of the luckiest men alive. Now in Switzerland, granted refugee status, and studying French and German, his extraordinary journey nearly cost him his life. “I was like a football – kicked from one country to another,” he told me from Zurich, which is now his home.</p>
<p>Bahabolom – or “Bob” as he’s known – set off from Eritrea (probably Africa’s most repressive state) back in 2009. Via Sudan and Egypt, he crossed the Sinai before entering Israel. “I got a job as a dishwasher and then a cook, in Tel Aviv,” he told me. “But I couldn’t get asylum – I was only given a conditional release and had to report to the authorities every three months.”</p>
<p>In 2013 this changed. He was told to choose between three years in prison, being returned to Eritrea or deportation to Rwanda. Faced with this dilemma he chose Rwanda and – armed with Israeli travel documents and US$3,500 – he flew to Kigali. </p>
<p>“We arrived at two in the morning. At the airport we were met by a man who called himself ‘John’. He was a black man – I think he was a Rwandan official.” He was taken to a house, where his Israeli travel documents were taken from him. “I protested,” says Bahabolom, “but John didn’t care. We had been promised by the Israelis we could live and work, but it didn’t happen.”</p>
<p>The following day a smuggler arrived and offered them the chance of going to Uganda. With few options, Bahabolom took it. “It was a hard journey: we crossed the border illegally, on foot.” But once in Kampala his situation was no better. Registration as a refugee was impossible, he couldn’t work and finally he decided to move on again. </p>
<p>Armed with a large sum of money, Bahabolom managed to get a flight to Turkey and from there crossed into Greece in 2015. “It was very difficult. We suffered a lot,” he explained. Finally, in September that year he made it to Switzerland and safety.</p>
<p>Bahabolom’s story is by no means unique. If the Israeli authorities have their way it is about to be replicated by thousands of Eritreans and Sudanese refugees, most of whom live in Tel Aviv. According to the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2017/11/5a0f27484/unhcr-concerned-israels-refugee-relocation-proposals.html">UN refugee agency</a> these asylum-seekers and refugees now face the grim choice of relocation to countries in Africa such as Rwanda, or imprisonment in Israel. </p>
<h2>‘Infiltrators’</h2>
<p>The plan is the latest iteration of a programme designed to expel the vast majority of Africans seeking asylum in Israel. The Israelis refuse to consider them refugees – instead terming them <a href="https://www.ardc-israel.org/refugees-or-infiltrators">“infiltrators”</a>. Rwanda will <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.823734">reportedly</a> be paid $5,000 per refugee.</p>
<p>The policy was initiated in December 2013 and by June 2017, some 4,000 Eritrean and Sudanese had been pressed to agree to be “voluntarily” relocated to Rwanda and Uganda. The UN is at its wits end trying to deal with this crisis. “This is not burden sharing,” Sharon Harel of the UNHCR told me. “It is burden shifting. These people are treated as refugees in orbit.”</p>
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<span class="caption">Women soldiers in Eritrea, where people can face almost indefinite conscription.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Soldiers_of_Eritrea_%28women%29.jpg">Temesgen Woldezion, Merhawie via Wikipedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much of Israeli decision-making takes place behind closed doors. Refugee agencies complain that they have no access to the evidence that has been placed before the courts who have endorsed the government’s actions. The UNHCR <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2017/11/5a0f27484/unhcr-concerned-israels-refugee-relocation-proposals.html">complains</a> of the “secrecy surrounding this policy and the lack of transparency concerning its implementation” which has made it difficult to monitor what happens to the refugees when they are deported to Africa.</p>
<p>Gilad Liberman, an Israeli human rights activist who has traced what happened when they landed in Rwanda, says that almost all the refugees are only allowed to remain in the country for a day or two. “They are then smuggled out of the country to Uganda. None are given visas to remain,” he says. This was confirmed to me by the UNHCR, which has only recorded seven refugees, who arrived from Israel, who were given an official status by Rwanda and even they only received temporary visas, which soon expired.</p>
<p>The plight of the refugees deported by Israel to Africa is well <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/israel/i-was-left-nothing-voluntary-departures-asylum-seekers-israel-rwanda-and-uganda-enhe">documented</a>. A <a href="http://hotline.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Deported-To-The-Unkown.pdf">report</a> by the Hotline for Refugees and Asylum Seekers – one of the Israeli NGOs active in this area – traced the men and women who had been sent to Rwanda. The refugees the NGO interviewed accused the Israeli officials of making false promises to them. In reality their travel documents were confiscated and they were held captive in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, until they could be smuggled into Uganda.</p>
<p>This is the experience that has been reported by a Ugandan-based agency, <a href="https://africamonitors.org/">Africa Monitors</a>. They found that many of the traffickers are Eritreans themselves – an allegation <a href="http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/human-trafficking-and-trauma-in-the-digital-era">supported</a> by other researchers. A pattern is emerging of a complex network of trafficking that can finally be <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2012/545">traced back</a> to the Eritrean government itself, which uses its countrymen and women as a means of extracting funds in return for their onward journey to Europe and beyond. </p>
<h2>Living in limbo in the US</h2>
<p>If the position of Eritreans in Israel is precarious, their status in the US is currently little better. While many are granted asylum, some are not. Those who are denied asylum have instead been released to sponsors, awaiting “final removal” back to Eritrea. In the past, the Eritrean government has routinely <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-cuts-off-visas-for-countries-that-refuse-deported-immigrants/article/2634314">refused</a> to grant them travel documents to allow them to be deported. </p>
<p>John Stauffer, president of <a href="http://eritreanrefugees.org">The America Team for Displaced Eritreans</a>, which works with the refugees, told me this changed in <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-cuts-off-visas-for-countries-that-refuse-deported-immigrants/article/2634314">September</a>. “Under pressure from the Trump administration, the State Department has now refused to issue visas to Eritreans in Eritrea for travel to the USA as a means to pressure the regime to accept deportees from the USA. The US embassy in Asmara would not issue them.” </p>
<p>As a result, it seems, the Eritrean authorities have buckled, and Eritreans who were not granted asylum are being issued with documents that will allow them to be returned to Asmara. Asylum seekers are being ordered to report to immigration officers in the US and some are then re-detained. Desperate not to be sent back to imprisonment or torture in the country from which they fled, some are travelling north. “They are using the backroads to cross into Canada,” says Stauffer. </p>
<p>For Eritreans who have already endured complex journeys, travelled thousands of miles and crossed so many borders, it’s a crushing experience. Paulos’s brother, Tesfa (not their real names) is in detention, awaiting imminent deportation based on travel documents that the Eritrean government has now provided to US authorities. He told me he is deeply fearful for what lies in store and disillusioned with America. </p>
<p>“The USA was for us always a country of refuge. People looked to the USA for moral leadership. Now my brother is facing deportation and torture. Who is there to look up to?” asks Paulos.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Plaut does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Israel is deporting thousands of Eritrean asylum seekers to Rwanda, while in the US, many face being sent back to the country they fled.Martin Plaut, Senior Research Fellow, Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/642882016-08-23T20:20:05Z2016-08-23T20:20:05ZMigrants from Africa bear brunt of discrimination but remain positive, survey finds<p>The broad finding of the Scanlon Foundation’s <a href="http://www.scanlonfoundation.org.au/australians-today">latest survey</a> of Australian attitudes remains that Australia is seen as a good country for immigrants. New arrivals are optimistic, with just 6% indicating they are “strongly dissatisfied” or “dissatisfied”. But not all findings are positive.</p>
<p>Among Indigenous Australian respondents, most of whom live in major cities in Victoria and New South Wales, 59% reported experience of discrimination. It was still higher for some African groups: 60% for those born in Ethiopia, 67% for Kenyan-born, 75% for Zimbabwean-born and 77% for those born in South Sudan.</p>
<p>The latest survey is the largest exploration of attitudes to cultural diversity and of the immigrant experience that has been conducted in Australia. The Australia@2015 survey was open for six months from September 2015 and had more than 10,000 respondents. An additional 285 participated in 51 focus group discussions in four states.</p>
<p>The objective of reaching such a large number of respondents was to understand sub-groups of the population. Australia@2015 was available in English and 19 languages, with 1,521 (14%) questionnaires completed in a language other than English.</p>
<p>The survey explored a broad range of issues, including economic fortunes, life satisfaction, trust in institutions such as the police force and the Commonwealth parliament, and experience of discrimination.</p>
<p>Earlier surveys by the foundation found marked differences when respondents were asked if they had experienced discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity, skin colour or religion. </p>
<p>Analysis by country of birth found that the Australia-born report the lowest level of discrimination, in the range 10-15%, followed by overseas-born of English-speaking background. The highest levels, in the range 40-50%, were reported by overseas-born of non-English-speaking background.</p>
<h2>Positive attitude despite discrimination</h2>
<p>The broader range of respondents in the Australia@2015 survey identifies groups with higher levels of discrimination. South Sudanese were the largest African group represented in the 2015 survey, with 166 respondents. </p>
<p>Most South Sudanese are Christian and a relatively new immigrant group. The peak of arrivals was between 1996 and 2005 through the <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/about/corporate/information/fact-sheets/60refugee#b">humanitarian program</a>. Of South Sudanese survey respondents, 52% arrived between 2001 and 2005 and 31% between 2006 and 2010.</p>
<p>A large majority of South Sudanese, 76%, indicated they are satisfied with life in Australia, with 12% dissatisfied. A majority, 58%, also indicated that their experience of Australia is more positive than they had expected and 4% that it was more negative. A relatively high proportion, 30%, declined to answer.</p>
<p>Analysis of South Sudanese respondents by sub-group (gender, age, region of residence and faith) finds a large measure of consistency in the reporting of discrimination; for example, by 75% of men and 79% of women. For no other birthplace group with at least 50 respondents does experience of discrimination match these levels.</p>
<p>The six focus groups conducted with South Sudanese often discussed experience of discrimination. It seems differences of skin colour are a significant issue for many Australians, who have had little interaction with very dark-skinned people in the southern states.</p>
<h2>The hurts of daily racism</h2>
<p>Dark-skinned African immigrants are pioneers in a process of transition and adjustment in Australia. One participant observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At the start … when they see a black person for the first time … I guess … people are surprised. And then once the community started building up it was a norm, so you didn’t get that much behaviour.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A second person employed in the CBD commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They see (a) dark-skinned guy working in such a job, such a profession, it’s a surprise, it’s different. If I was in America it’s a norm, but here it’s different – it’s like, ‘Oh, you people do these type of jobs?’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another participant, when asked if he had ever felt unwelcome, responded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve never felt welcome … White Australians … the majority … hate us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>People spoke of the lack of cultural awareness encountered, with little or no understanding that there are different African national and language groups: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because not all of them know there’s different countries in Africa. Somebody’s like, ‘Oh, you’re from Africa, so you speak African.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For some, the experience of life in Australia becomes almost unbearable. A woman from a West African country, resettled from a refugee camp, recalled incidents on buses, including hostile behaviour of bus drivers, injury to her mother, abuse on the street, neighbours who threw rubbish into her property, and cars parked in her unit in such a way that it was difficult to open the front door.</p>
<p>Several participants spoke of their resignation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You just get mad but then we can’t do anything about it so we just, like, let it be, because it is what it is.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others discussed life in Australia in similar terms.</p>
<p>Respondent: “Some parents when they experience racism they don’t want to do anything about it or say anything about it, because they think it’s normal.”</p>
<p>Respondent: “Yeah, they think it’s normal.”</p>
<p>Respondent: “I think they just adapt to it and they shouldn’t have to adapt to it, but they do.”</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read the full Australians Today report on the Scanlon Foundation’s Australia@2015 survey <a href="http://www.scanlonfoundation.org.au/australians-today">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Markus receives funding from the Scanlon Foundation. The Au@2015 survey also received funding from the federal government. </span></em></p>While 60-77% of migrants of African origin and 59% of Indigenous Australians report experience of discrimination in the Scanlon Foundation survey of Australian attitudes, optimism endures.Andrew Markus, Pratt Foundation Research Chair of Jewish Civilisation, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/604662016-06-07T14:16:56Z2016-06-07T14:16:56ZHow climate change could affect African migration patterns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125356/original/image-20160606-25972-gv4v47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are indications that climate change in Malawi will make the country poorer and its people more static.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/meaduva/3507246636/">Meaduva/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People are migrating on a scale unseen before. In <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.NETM">Africa</a>, countries like Somalia and Libya are losing hundreds of thousands of people. People are making the perilous crossing to Europe or heading to South Africa in droves. </p>
<p>It is easy to forget that it was migrations from Africa that populated the world. First, <em>Homo erectus</em> left about two million years ago. Then, about 100,000 years ago, <em>Homo sapiens</em> spread from Africa to Asia, eventually populating the most remote corners of the earth. </p>
<p>It is believed that many of these early mass migrations were caused by <a href="https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/">changes to climate</a> and <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.472.3638&rep=rep1&type=pdf">food supply</a>. Could future climate change drive a similar mass migration?</p>
<p>There is strong evidence linking climate change to more heatwaves, heavier rainfall events, and increasing drought intensity and duration. This is clear in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change <a href="http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/">report</a>. The report also details how these changes affect crops and food supply. Cereal crops are particularly vulnerable to heatwaves, meaning that areas suitable for production will decrease across much of <a href="http://www.climatechange-foodsecurity.org/africa.html">Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Tropical climates do not typically vary much in time and are generally quite predictable, so even today’s modest climate change is enough to break temperature, drought and rainfall records. Therefore climate change poses a real threat to food security of the region, and poorer countries are generally the most vulnerable. The world is also seeing more migration than ever before. It is therefore tempting, at least in part, to blame climate change for the massive displacement of people we see today. But does it?</p>
<h2>Climate change and migration</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241">Research</a> by Colin Kelley and his colleagues implicated climate change in the Syrian conflict. This led to something of a <a href="https://climatemigration.atavist.com/syria-and-climate-change">media frenzy</a>, with speculation rife that global refugee crises driven by climate change would become the new norm.</p>
<p>But the research literature has not made firm conclusions about the impact of climate change on migration. </p>
<p>Migration takes many forms and can have many social and economic drivers. Nevertheless, it is expected that climate change will have some effect on human movement. As such the <a href="http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf">Paris agreement</a> on climate change requested that a <a href="http://theconversation.com/climate-migration-proved-too-political-for-the-paris-agreement-and-rightly-so-52133">task force</a> be established to tackle human displacement.</p>
<p>What is clear is that it is difficult to generalise when it comes to migration. So we need to dig deeper if we want to make progress in understanding these links.</p>
<h2>What’s happened in Malawi</h2>
<p>A Malawian case study finds a connection between migration and climate change – but it is the opposite of what we had anticipated. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125358/original/image-20160606-17691-18drwhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125358/original/image-20160606-17691-18drwhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125358/original/image-20160606-17691-18drwhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125358/original/image-20160606-17691-18drwhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125358/original/image-20160606-17691-18drwhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125358/original/image-20160606-17691-18drwhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125358/original/image-20160606-17691-18drwhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125358/original/image-20160606-17691-18drwhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A long-term decline in harvests would undermine livelihoods and decrease people’s ability to migrate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/swathi-icrisat-esa/5726171200/in/photolist-9J18cE-6kVyo3-9Ec9nE-83nG5S-9Per83-9Per7b-833aAF-9Per7y-ajKZXy-89uTTf-9Per7U-bUWmMx-bUWmTB-81NEdP-89uUb9-48YC44-aQRFZx-833SvX-6kRnAk-5VJcB2-8Kbkh2-jAaxuc-crEcdE-aQRDAk-9qPVn7-8Jo2wP-8J5WWn-8JUD4P-aQRArP-b936r-aQRy5x-hfsqqn-6kRmDg-cqqD2Q-jAaZwn-5ZaUdY-aQRDWZ-7Ltts3-85BTxt-aETC3G-822s69-5UnHWf-dNhmQe-6kVuqj-73GTMZ-86wVB6-9xV5BH-zWkJQb-86K8SX-mnog8E">Swathi Sridharan/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our latest <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17565529.2016.1149441">paper</a> is based on 255 in-depth interviews with rural and urban focus groups in Malawi in which we tried to understand how Malawians might react to climate change. We explored rural-to-urban movements and return movements within the country. </p>
<p>Generally, our findings confirmed those found in previous work: individuals within populations move, rather than whole populations; and these individuals move for many <a href="http://climatemigration.org.uk/myth-buster-new-briefing-picks-apart-the-myth-and-reality-of-migration-and-displacement-linked-to-climate-change/">complex reasons</a>.</p>
<p>We tested two types of climate-driven impact: a long-term decline in harvests and a sudden acute shock to the system. Rather than climate changes forcing people into urban areas, as is believed to be the case in Syria, we found that in both cases climate change would make people less able to move. </p>
<p>A long-term decline in harvests would undermine livelihoods and thus decrease people’s ability to move because of a lack of resources to do so. Also, in a country like Malawi many people move to the city to sell agricultural products, firewood gathered in the forest or handicrafts. If climate change undermines the productivity of the rural environment, the rationale that currently drives some urban migration could be eroded. </p>
<p>Our data also noted that people’s aspirations to migrate would not generally be affected by climate change – only younger, more affluent farmers would in the event of climate change aspire to move to the city. With a climate shock, both aspiration and capability for moving would be reduced. Aspiration is reduced as urban prospects are reduced by a climate shock due to Malawi’s agriculture-based economy.</p>
<p>Our findings for Malawi indicate that climate change will make the country poorer and its people more static. This represents a demonstrable effect of climate on population flows, even though it is contrary to our original hypothesis. More affluent populations in other countries would have more capability to move in response to climate change, so it will be interesting to conduct interviews elsewhere too.</p>
<p>So poverty and poor harvests caused by climate change may actually reduce migration flows. </p>
<p>But the bigger question we should ask ourselves is whether migration is necessarily <a href="http://climatemigration.org.uk/migration-as-adaptation-new-briefing-paper/">a bad thing</a>. It may increase resilience of populations. In the long run we may even contemplate employing resources to encourage and plan migrations as part of an adaptation policy to limit the impact of future climate change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Piers Forster receives funding from Research Councils UK. He is affiliated with a UK based charity, the United Bank of Carbon. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evan Fraser receives funding from all sorts of groups including philanthropic organisations and research councils. He is also a member of the Green party of Ontario.</span></em></p>There is belief among some that climate change drives human displacement, but research in Malawi suggests otherwise.Piers Forster, Professor of Physical Climate Change; Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award holder; Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of LeedsEvan Fraser, Professor; Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/599402016-06-02T11:03:18Z2016-06-02T11:03:18ZBurundi violence has created a refugee crisis in a strained and volatile region<p>Burundi has been caught in a violent political nightmare since 2015, ignited by President Nkurinziza’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/burundis-fraught-elections-are-over-but-the-violence-is-not-46162">questionable re-election for a third term</a>. The ensuing violence has claimed many lives and blighted many more.</p>
<p>The UN’s refugee agency, <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/">UNHCR</a>, is reporting multiple counts of <a href="http://tracks.unhcr.org/2016/05/running-from-rape-in-burundi/">rape of both men and women</a>, and reports of increased violence by <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/report/101418/who-are-imbonerakure-and-burundi-unravelling">Imbonerakure</a>, the youth wing of the ruling party. <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201605091054.html">Arrests, disappearances</a> and beatings continue unabated, and it seems there’s no peace in sight for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>Despite its scale, the Burundian crisis has received little media attention outside of Africa. The probability of the troubles <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/29/burundi-fears-grow-executions-desertions-undermine-army-civil-conflict">descending into an ethnic conflict</a> is now a very real one, and the potential repercussions are not being recognised beyond the immediate region. </p>
<p>But it would be a disaster of very serious proportions if this was allowed to escalate, not least because it would be extremely difficult to stop the violence from spreading to Rwanda, which could undo 20 years of painstaking work by all parties to move on from that country’s 1994 genocide. </p>
<p>Yet given the general lack of effort in peacekeeping to date, it seems the <a href="http://www.msf.org.uk/article/legacy-rwandan-genocide">legacy of Rwanda</a> and the lessons supposedly learned have been quickly forgotten. The links to Rwanda are particularly important when one considers that a leaked UN report suggests <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/un-panel-says-rwanda-is-training-rebels-to-depose-burundis-president">Rwanda</a> is providing groups such as Imbonerakure with weapons and housing camps.</p>
<p>Worse yet, the Burundian crisis is unfolding during an extremely difficult time for the other countries in its neighbourhood.</p>
<h2>In search of safety</h2>
<p>Large swathes of the African continent are in the grip of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/may/22/africa-worst-famine-since-1985-looms-for-50-million">the worst El Niño weather pattern in recent years</a>, which has created a devastating famine. An estimated 50m people will be in urgent need of food by the end of 2016. In Burundi, the weather pattern has resulted in <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-burundi-aid-idUSKCN0X51YX">excessive rain and flooding</a> in numerous provinces, destroying more than 5,000 houses and ruining swathes of agricultural land. </p>
<p>The result is displacement on a massive scale to Rwanda, Uganda and especially Tanzania, which now hosts a population of just over <a href="http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/RefugeeSituationStatsReport_29May16.pdf">207,000</a> refugees, 137,000 of whom are Burundian citizens.</p>
<p>But look at a map of east and southern Africa today and it’s difficult to see where these various groups of desperate people can safely go. Somalia and South Sudan are both highly unstable. Kenya has announced it will <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-threat-to-close-dadaab-camp-plays-on-international-refugee-fears-59747">close its largest refugee camps</a> and expel hundreds of thousands of mostly Somali refugees. Tanzania is already stretched beyond capacity. Rwanda and Uganda, meanwhile, are already hosting many Burundians and are reluctant to take many more. </p>
<p>Many Burundians who’ve fled to Tanzania are living in awful conditions. The <a href="http://www.rescue.org/press-releases/overstretched-and-underfunded-refugee-camps-put-over-110000-burundians-tanzania-risk-">current state of the camps</a> in Nyarugusu, Nduta and Mtendeli is dire. Local authorities are overwhelmed, struggling to provide adequate basic services of water, sanitation, shelter, health and education to this ever-growing population. <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/5/555f013e9/cholera-epidemic-claims-31-lives-tanzania-including-29-burundian-refugees.html">Cholera</a> has already killed a number of people.</p>
<p>There are also serious protection concerns in the camps. The International Rescue Committee reports that <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/05/increasing-perils-tanzania-nyarugusu-refugee-camp-160520115153710.html">two to three women are raped</a> each week, and there are stories of militias <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/burundi-militias-hunting-refugees-tanzania-160205141830846.html">crossing the border</a> from Burundi to hunt opposition members in the camps. </p>
<p>UNHCR requires immediate assistance, both in terms of greater capacity from partner organisations and a serious injection of money. As of May 2016, its Burundi mission suffers a <a href="http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/regionalupdates/2016%20Burundi%20Situation%20Funding%20Overview%20as%20of%2017MAY16.pdf">funding shortfall</a> of US$127m, meaning it’s only 28% funded. Estimates from UNHCR state that if the exodus from Burundi continues, there will be <a href="http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/Burundi%20RRRP%20Jan-Dec.%202016%20-%20December%202015.pdf">170,000 Burundian refugees</a> in Tanzania by December 2016. Vast resources are needed to provide this many people with basic services, and Tanzania is already stretched to capacity. </p>
<p>For some Burundians, this is their <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/11/burundi-refugees-life-displacement-despair-151125085630940.html">second or even third displacement</a>. Although there has been no large-scale research conducted on this as yet, anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them do not want to go back to Burundi, even if the fighting stopped now. </p>
<p>Most of the world’s civilian deaths are thought to occur in “<a href="http://folk.uio.no/hahegre/Papers/ConflictTrapPaper.pdf">conflict traps</a>”, where armed clashes are resolved and then relapse into further violence, the cycle claiming more and more lives. This is what’s happening in Burundi today – and the international community needs to step in before the sad history of the region repeats itself.</p>
<h2>Running out of time</h2>
<p>A round of peace talks, led by former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, has just <a href="https://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2016/05/24/burundi%E2%80%99s-peace-talks-going-nowhere">concluded without agreement</a>. The talks were effectively doomed before they began by the exclusion of the opposition group the National Council for the Restoration of Arusha Agreement and Rule of Law (<a href="http://cnared.info/wordpress/">CNARED</a>). </p>
<p>To prevent further violence, a peacekeeping force must be dispatched to Burundi, either in the form of a renewed African Prevention and Protection mission (MAPROBU), most likely using <a href="http://www.easfcom.org/index.php/en/about-easf/history-and-background">East African Standby Forces</a>, or a UN peacekeeping mission. </p>
<p>The original plan for sending MAPROBU forces to Burundi in January 2016 <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/african-union-decides-peacekeepers-burundi-160131102052278.html">was stopped</a> when Nkurinziza stated that any intervention would be considered <a href="http://www.jambonews.net/en/news/20160413-what-the-african-union-could-do-for-burundi/">an attack on Burundian soil</a> and “every Burundian would rise to fight against it”. That must not be the final word on the matter.</p>
<p>To date, the African Union has arguably been more of a lame duck than a force to be reckoned with. It’s now time for it to finally prove its worth, before this disaster spirals even further out of control.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been updated to clarify that Kenya plans on closing its largest refugee camp, not all its camps.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aisling O'Loghlen received funding from the International Growth Centre to carry out fieldwork in Tanzania for her Ph.D. research</span></em></p>East Africa is dealing with drought, famine, political instability – and hundreds of thousands of people in search of safety.Aisling O'Loghlen, PhD Researcher, Heriot-Watt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597472016-05-26T12:22:40Z2016-05-26T12:22:40ZKenya’s threat to close Dadaab camp plays on international refugee fears<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123935/original/image-20160525-25213-1hxgytd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Refugees waiting to receive essential items, including food, jerry cans, blankets, soap and plastic sheeting, at Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jo Harrison/Oxfam</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Kenyan government <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-06/kenya-says-it-s-closing-down-refugee-camps-over-insecurity">says that</a> it plans to close <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/09/21/worlds-large-refugee-camp-in-kenya-could-be-the-future.html">Dadaab</a>, the world’s largest refugee camp. It had also threatened to close the country’s other major refugee camp, <a href="https://kanere.org/about-kakuma-refugee-camp/">Kakuma</a>, but has subsequently <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2016-05-12/news/73039675_1_dadaab-refugee-camp-kakuma">said it won’t</a>. Speaking at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Deputy President William Ruto <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/UN-chief-not-accepting-Kenya-decision-to-shut-Dadaab-camps/-/1056/3216980/-/7jaia0z/-/index.html">declared</a> that Dadaab will be closed by the end of the year.</p>
<p>This move has gained much-needed attention. Kenya continues to host one of the largest refugee populations at a time when international attention has overwhelmingly turned to Europe and the movement of people out of Syria. Despite hosting more than half a million people, the camps’ remote locations and longevity have made them easy to ignore.</p>
<p>In addition to the planned camp closure, Kenya’s Department of Refugee Affairs has been shut down. Though the government has threatened to <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-harsh-new-security-laws-put-hundreds-of-thousands-of-refugees-at-risk-35789">restrict refugees to camps</a> or <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32269944">close the camps altogether</a> several times <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/closing-the-camps-kenyas-deja-vu-politics/">before</a>, this suggests a worrying escalation. Established in 2006 alongside the country’s Refugee Act, the department worked with the United Nations Refugee Agency to register and assist refugees in Kenya. Who will fill the gap left by this closure is unclear.</p>
<p>While not in this case, previous threats have often followed bloody terror attacks such as at the ones at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/kenyan-mall-attacks">Westgate Mall</a> in 2013 or <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-horrific-violence-in-kenya-39746">Garissa University College</a> in 2015. These have led to refugees being equated with terrorism, and Dadaab being labelled a “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/14/kenya-garissa-dadaab-scapegoat-al-shabaab">nursery for al-Shabaab</a>”. </p>
<p>The reality is that the camp highlights the violence that has led many to flee Somalia for the relative safety of Kenya.</p>
<p>The perceived danger posed by the movement of refugees serves as a useful tool in populist politics. It can serve as a bargaining chip in negotiating further aid or galvanise fearful citizens. As <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34884544">Donald Trump’s</a> fear mongering over Syrian refugees and anti-migrant rhetoric in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32299548">South Africa</a> have shown, this is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/04/refugees-crime-rumors/480171/">not unique to Kenya</a>.</p>
<h2>Grave consequences</h2>
<p>If enacted, the government’s plans would have <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/ngos-urge-government-kenya-reconsider-intended-closure-refugee-camps">grave consequences</a> for the hundreds of thousands of refugees living in Kenya. Global resettlement of refugees is already low and unlikely to meet the needs of those being told to now leave Kenya. </p>
<p>The closure would result in refugees returning to unsafe countries, moving to other countries in the region that already have their own extensive refugee populations, shifting from Dadaab to the already overpopulated Kakuma or making dangerous journeys to try to reach safety further afield. The move is also in breach of <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201605110379.html">national, regional and international law</a>. </p>
<p>The recent start of campaigning for the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11366193/Kenyas_next_General_Elections_can_only_be_held_in_August_2017">2017 Kenyan elections</a> and the announcement concerning refugees is not coincidental. Like the plans to build a <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2015/04/why-the-wall-kenya-is-building-on-its-border-with-somalia-is-a-terrible-idea/">border wall with Somalia</a>, the scapegoating of refugees plays out well with parts of the electorate. </p>
<p>The timing of this move, and the reasons behind it, hold important lessons for understanding refugee situations around the world. In particular:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>that longstanding humanitarian situations should not be ignored;</p></li>
<li><p>that there are very deep inequalities between different refugee populations; and </p></li>
<li><p>that, in a world increasingly fearful of the presence of refugees, there is mileage in host countries drawing attention to the burden they carry.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Uneven response</h2>
<p>The images of the protracted crisis in Kenya’s camps or new crises in the region have received comparatively little attention compared with the global response to the refugee influx into Europe.</p>
<p>In 2015 <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/5683d0b56.html">alone</a> more than a million people fled to Europe and the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/03/world/gallery/europes-refugee-crisis/">images</a> of boats overflowing with people, stormed fences, demolished camps and drowned children have brought some of the realities of forced displacement to the forefront of Europe’s collective conscious. Despite the attention, rich countries have resettled only <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2016-03-29/rich-countries-have-resettled-just-139-syrian-refugees-need-step">1.39% of Syrian refugees</a> and keeping displaced people at a distance is still the dominant position.</p>
<p>Since the end of 2013, <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/SouthSudan/regional.php">South Sudan</a> has produced close to three-quarters of a million refugees.</p>
<p>Fighting following the contested presidential election in <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/burundi/regional.php">Burundi</a> in April 2015 has produced over a quarter of a million refugees. </p>
<p>Yet, the consequences of these conflicts in terms of population displacement are often <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/burundi-ethnic-violence-refugees">ignored</a>.</p>
<p>This is in part because the vast majority of refugees from both of these countries do not end up on boats attempting to cross the Mediterranean. Instead most are hosted in the camps and cities of countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. Not all refugee experiences are <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2015/02/the-hierarchy-of-refugee-stories/">equal</a> and many of those in East Africa don’t register for those outside the region.</p>
<h2>International attention</h2>
<p>Beyond internal populist politics, the Kenyan government’s announcement is also concerned with what can be gained from the <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/counties/refugee-repatriation-standoff/-/1107872/3204312/-/xnieej/-/index.html">outside</a>. In a crowded humanitarian market, where the situation in Europe and the Middle East has eclipsed other refugee situations, the Kenyan government has threatened the one thing it knows will garner international attention.</p>
<p>The proposed closure of Dadaab stokes fears in Europe about another movement of people towards its borders and brings focus to a region often overlooked. And as the European Union’s recent deal with <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/jeff-crisp/protection-and-pragmatism-eu-turkey-refugee-deal-in-historical-perspecti">Turkey</a> has shown, European leaders are willing to go to great lengths to keep refugees out.</p>
<p>They have also offered increasingly large sums of <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/africa/EU-pledges--4-to-help-curb-migration/-/1066/2953244/-/o59foe/-/index.html">money</a> to African governments willing to help halt migration. From <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0XU1P9">Niger</a> to <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21698675-or-are-refugees-bargaining-chips-kenya-says-go-home">Kenya</a>, refugee-hosting countries are aware of the financial gains to be made by playing on these fears. While the government <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/-/1056/3215622/-/pjhdr4z/-/index.html">claims</a> to be steadfast in closing Dadaab, greater financial concessions from donors may still lead to a change of mind. It’s also unlikely any government would wish to preside over a potential <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Letters/Dadaab-camp-closure-will-create-humanitarian-crisis/-/440806/3201070/-/15laa1c/-/index.html">humanitarian catastrophe</a>.</p>
<p>The use of refugees for financial or political rewards is an extremely dangerous and worrying trend. But, it is an important reminder of the dangers of overlooking crises just because they appear to be “<a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/managing-displacement">managed</a>” in distant camps. In the meantime, the lives of more than half a million people in Kenya hang in the balance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil JW does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The timing of Kenya’s announcement that it will close the world’s largest refugee camp, and its reasons for doing so, hold important lessons for understanding refugee situations around the world.Neil JW, Visiting Lecturer, Department of International Politics, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567602016-04-01T04:22:45Z2016-04-01T04:22:45ZHow teachers can help migrant learners feel more included<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116458/original/image-20160325-17857-1rrvikb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrant children can feel left out and excluded in schools far from home.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Ludbrook/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Children are often at the forefront of working out what it means to be a new arrival in a different country. They feel the anxiety that comes with being the new girl or boy at school. They’re in an environment that emphasises “integration” – learning new rules, making new friends, possibly learning a new language and grappling with a new testing regime.</p>
<p>Amid all of these changes, teachers may not realise how important it is simply for children to feel included. Even making their home countries a feature of lessons in, for example, geography can help children feel more at ease. It is a valuable opportunity for them to contribute. If their identities are ignored these children may feel detached from school. This sense of detachment has been <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=tZ6KLHSZgO0C&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=children+who+feel+detached+don%27t+learn+well&source=bl&ots=WyX10pn4p5&sig=sC5m91hw2YTViNB0xI6Sy1hDtgs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjS8pTOu9vLAhVDVxoKHaa3AvgQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=children%20who%20feel%20detached%20don't%20learn%20well&f=false">shown</a> to negatively affect learning. It may also have more serious consequences for a child’s sense of belonging and, ultimately, well-being.</p>
<p>Research I am currently doing in South Africa and England – countries with long histories of migration – looks at the inclusion of migrant learners in primary schools through their own lens, quite literally. The children take photographs in school as a way of explaining and engaging with their environment as a place of inclusion and exclusion. </p>
<h2>Children as migrants</h2>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/2010_PHC/South_Africa/ZAF04-Census2011.pdf">2011 census</a> showed that almost 2.2 million people living there were born elsewhere. Some are economic migrants, seeking work. Others are <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e485aa6.html">refugees or asylum seekers</a>. There is also a large population of undocumented migrants. Most come from other African countries.</p>
<p>It’s not known exactly how many migrant children attend South African schools. New arrivals – especially refugees – may <a href="http://www.fhr.org.za/index.php/download_file/728/3152/">lack the formal documentation</a> required for school registration. Added to this challenge is the reality of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2015/05/xenophobia-south-africa-150501090636029.html">xenophobic attacks</a> against new immigrants. </p>
<p>On paper, at least, children enjoy good protection. The <a href="http://www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/Publication-pdfs/UNCRC_summary.pdf">United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child</a> requires all signatories – South Africa and the UK included – to adhere to a long list of rights. These include the right to free primary education, non-discrimination and to be consulted on anything that affects them.</p>
<p>But <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2015.1119649">my previous research</a> in conflict-affected societies revealed that children and adolescents, particularly those from marginalised groups, struggle with freedom of speech in school. They also don’t often feel represented in the curriculum.</p>
<h2>A new, visual voice</h2>
<p>My new, ongoing research explored inclusion in primary schools from the point of view of recent migrant children. The learner-researchers, who are nine or ten years old, worked in small groups, each child using a digital camera. We worked with <a href="http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html"><em>The Arrival</em></a>, a wordless picturebook that has recently started to be used in this sort of <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/visual-journeys-through-wordless-narratives-9781780937588/">research</a>. It helped the children think about what it’s like to arrive in a new country and stimulated memories of their own experiences. </p>
<p>Then we walked together around school photographing signs, classrooms, playgrounds and people – anything that the children thought was important to know about their school. Finally, we talked about the photos and came up with some advice for teachers and other learners about how to help new arrivals feel included. </p>
<h2>Three ways to include migrant learners</h2>
<p>So how can we include migrant learners in school? Here are three tips based on a combination of what the learners in the two countries shared while taking part in the photographic project.</p>
<p>First, ask them. Children struggle with the idea that they are free to make suggestions to adults. I found that when we tried to come up with a list of advice for teachers, it turned into a list of rules for the learner to keep. It emerged that some things teachers did to be helpful, like getting the learner to introduce themselves on the first day, were the opposite of what the children wanted – to be welcomed quietly while sitting with a classmate.</p>
<p>Part of the process of doing research that involves children as participants includes building their capacity so that they can see themselves as individuals who have something important to say. Simply explaining that “We, as adults, know some things about school, but you also know many things that I don’t know because you go to this school” can empower them.</p>
<p>Second, be creative. Use picturebooks, <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-009-0324-1">photography</a>, music and dance. These methods can engage new arrivals in a way that doesn’t demand great proficiency or confidence in using the school’s language. Of course the school day is very demanding for both learners and educators, but finding time to do something outside of the normal routine may pay great dividends in learners’ confidence and well-being.</p>
<p>Third, make sure that their identities are discussed and valued in the curriculum, and reflected in their school’s ethos. We must allow them to “find themselves in the story” of what they are learning in school. This will ensure their confidence in who they are, and is particularly important for marginalised groups. The very fact that these learners were chosen to take part in this project seemed to make them feel privileged and valued.</p>
<h2>Children’s voices matter</h2>
<p>The late statesman Nelson Mandela is quoted as <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/gallery/photo_16.shtml">declaring</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Children are our greatest treasure. They are our future. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Migrant children are a part of this great treasure. They must be included – and this will happen best when their own voices and stories are heard.</p>
<p><em>Author’s note: most of the children’s photographs featured their own faces, and so cannot be republished here. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Centre for International Teacher Education at the CPUT, where I have been working as a visiting researcher.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56760/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Hanna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Migrant children may feel uncomfortable or shy trying to verbally explain their experiences. Photography is a powerful medium through which to make their voices heard.Helen Hanna, Lecturer in Education Studies and Visiting Researcher at Centre for International Teacher Education, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Leeds Trinity UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494502015-10-23T03:13:23Z2015-10-23T03:13:23ZLessons in refugee hospitality from the Horn of Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99190/original/image-20151021-15449-7dvsav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Yemeni girl holds a baby in a temporary shelter at the port town Bosasso in Somalia's Puntland after fleeing war in Yemen. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Feisal Omar T</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The unique response of the Horn of Africa region to Yemeni refugees could offer lessons to countries and regions dealing with similar influxes elsewhere.</p>
<p>Escalating internal fighting and Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen have led to an estimated <a href="http://www.unocha.org/aggregator/sources/80">21.4 million people</a> – more than 80% of its population – being in need of humanitarian protection or assistance. </p>
<p>More than one million people have been <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-situation-regional-refugee-and-migrant-response-plan-october-december-2015-0">forced</a> from their homes. Of these, <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-situation-regional-refugee-and-migrant-response-plan-october-december-2015-0">approximately 100,000</a>, both Yemenis and foreign nationals, have fled to seek safety elsewhere. The majority – about 70,000 – have <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-situation-regional-refugee-and-migrant-response-plan-october-december-2015-0">crossed</a> the Gulf of Aden, seeking refuge in countries such as Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti.</p>
<p>Access to territory and protection has been swift for Yemeni refugees arriving in the Horn of Africa. This provides a lesson in hospitality that would be well heeded elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Unique reversal of roles</h2>
<p>Yemeni displacement to the Horn of Africa is in some respects unique. Africa is a continent familiar with large-scale refugee crises. However, it is uncommon for those seeking protection in the region to arrive from elsewhere.</p>
<p>With the possible exception of South Africa – which receives a small number of applications for asylum from persons outside the <a href="http://www.lhr.org.za/publications/queue-here-corruption-measuring-irregularities-south-africa%E2%80%99s-asylum-system">continent</a> – those seeking refuge in African states tend to come from within the region itself. </p>
<p>What is even more striking is that the countries of asylum themselves – including Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia – are among the chief refugee-producing countries in the region. Prior to the outbreak of conflict, Yemen was itself host to some <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-situation-regional-refugee-and-migrant-response-plan-october-december-2015-0">250,000 refugees</a>, mainly from Somalia.</p>
<p>The Horn of Africa is a region beset with poverty and insecurity. So how has it responded to this influx of refugees from outside? The Yemeni crisis provides a unique perspective on refugee protection in a region where refugee policies and practices have largely not been analysed. </p>
<p>The protection afforded to Yemenis arriving on African shores is far from perfect. However, several features of the African response would be worth highlighting to those in charge of refugee reception and protection elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Sound foundation for generosity</h2>
<p>The legal framework for refugee protection in Africa is one of the most advanced in the world.</p>
<p>The vast majority of African states are party to the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/3b73b0d63.html">1951 Refugee Convention</a>. In addition, Africa’s 1969 <a href="http://www.au.int/en/sites/default/files/Convention_En_Refugee_Problems_in_Africa_AddisAbaba_10September1969_0.pdf">Organisation of African Unity Convention</a> provides even more generous protections to those displaced from their homes.</p>
<p>The African Refugee Convention has been widely praised for its liberal approach to protection. It expands the definition of a refugee, broadens the principle of non-refoulement and endorses the principles of voluntary repatriation and international burden-sharing.</p>
<p>Implementation of the African Refugee Convention has been far from comprehensive. A lack of resources, legal capacity and political will continue to severely undermine protection in many parts of the region. Nevertheless, the convention’s humanitarian spirit reflects the often inclusive and welcoming approach of African states in times of crisis.</p>
<p>The Horn of Africa response to Yemeni refugees has been open, even welcoming, when compared with the reception of refugees elsewhere.</p>
<p>Access to territory has not been an issue. Horn of Africa countries have kept their borders open to those arriving across the Gulf. A representative of the government of Somaliland, himself hosting two refugee families, has expressed sympathy and messages of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/yemenis-fleeing-somaliland-struggle-survival-150521100540616.html">welcome</a> for Yemeni refugees.</p>
<p>This reception of refugees stands in stark contrast to the blatantly <a href="http://budapestbeacon.com/public-policy/viktor-orban-immigration-must-defend/18191">defensive response</a> to migration of some European governments. </p>
<h2>Pragmatic approach</h2>
<p>Regions such as Europe have crafted specific and detailed mechanisms for dealing with refugee protection in situations of mass influx. In contrast, African states by and large have adopted a more pragmatic approach. Recognising the need for protection, many African states simply confer refugee status on a group basis to all those fleeing the affected zone. </p>
<p>Rather than closing their borders until a regional agreement on protection can be found, the governments of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan have all granted <em>prima facie</em> refugee status to Yemeni asylum seekers. This facilitates quick registration and the provision of assistance to those arriving with nothing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99313/original/image-20151022-8013-1ixazny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mounted policeman leads a group of migrants near Dobova, Slovenia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Srdjan Zivulovic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Role of customary norms</h2>
<p>State-based laws and policies are only one aspect of African regional responses to displaced persons in need. In practice, customary norms of hospitality and the generous responses of host communities may have even more of an impact on refugees’ safety. </p>
<p>A large proportion of Yemenis displaced to the Horn of Africa are living with local communities, relying on their generosity and hospitality to survive. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, acknowledged this in a recent <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/56122bd76.html">address</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In a world where more than two-thirds of all refugees are Muslim, it is important to recognise that there is nothing in the 1951 Convention that is not already present in ancient Islamic traditions and legal texts.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Lesson for the world</h2>
<p>Displacement crises in Africa are generally considered less newsworthy than those in Europe. But they are no less devastating. In some cases, they provide an opportunity to reflect on how we might better manage such crises at the regional level.</p>
<p>Protection for Yemeni refugees arriving in the Horn of Africa is far from exemplary. Profound challenges remain. The lack of safe legal avenues means that the vast majority of those fleeing conflict in Yemen face perilous journeys.</p>
<p>Once they arrive, instability within many host countries means security is far from guaranteed. The lack of appropriate reception arrangements and a fear of removal or detention mean many refugees do not access formal protection channels. The shortfall of funding for protection and assistance in the region remains chronic. In countries where humanitarian resources are stretched beyond their limits, the regional response to the Yemen crisis remains only one-fifth funded. </p>
<p>Despite this complex and challenging protection environment, the response of many African states has been swift, generous and practical. The sense of solidarity expressed by governments and local communities stands in stark contrast to the responses to refugee crises being witnessed elsewhere. </p>
<p>Perhaps it is time to recognise Africa not just as a source of refugees but also as a (tentative) champion of principles of humanity and hospitality. These are principles frequently lacking when those forced to flee their homes and lives come looking for protection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49450/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamara Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Although Africa is familiar with large-scale refugee crises, it is uncommon for it to host people seeking protection from outside the continent, as is the case with thousands of Yemeni refugees.Tamara Wood, Doctoral Candidate, Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/484792015-10-06T04:07:33Z2015-10-06T04:07:33ZWhy helping ‘economic migrants’ may help stop others becoming ‘refugees’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97245/original/image-20151005-28747-1nu7krk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mickael, from Eritrea, sits close to a security fence on the main access route to the ferry harbour terminal in Calais, France.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Pascal Rossignol</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the prevalence of <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoIEritrea/A_HRC_29_CRP-1_Chapter_I_II.pdf">reports</a> documenting the worrying conditions faced by individuals within Eritrea, and the huge numbers leaving the country, one might ask: who remains in the country and why? </p>
<p>Conversations with colleagues and friends within Eritrea last year often turned to people discussing why they had decided not to leave. For many, their rationale was simple: because somebody they knew already had. Those who had left constituted the “lungs” whose <a href="http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-05-29-remittance-in-africa-where-does-it-go">remittances</a> kept those within the country alive. The question then is what would happen if that flow dried up.</p>
<p>All of their dependants, whether brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, children, friends and wider relatives, would have to rethink the feasibility of remaining in Eritrea. Many reasoned that the only solution would be to themselves cross the border and leave their country. The country of 6.7 million is <a href="http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/eritrea-population/">located</a> in the Horn of Africa. </p>
<p>For many reasons, leaving Eritrea is an intimidating prospect. Every stage of the onward journey <a href="https://theconversation.com/europe-wont-resolve-the-migrant-crisis-until-it-faces-its-own-past-46555">carries danger</a>, and no certainty of employment. Those who leave Eritrea forfeit their automatic right to return and their rights to assets within the country. It potentially places their relatives and friends at risk of being accused by the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/eritrea">government</a> of assisting their escape. </p>
<p>For others, love for their country runs deep and they do not wish to abandon it after its hard-fought struggle for <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Eritrean_War_of_Independence">independence</a>. Their desire to stay put is nonetheless linked to the ability of others around them to move.</p>
<p>Beyond the contribution that gold and mining make to the Eritrean economy, the World Bank says that <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/eritrea/overview">“economic conditions remain challenging”</a>. Government policies have impoverished those surviving in Eritrea without external support. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>indefinite national service;</p></li>
<li><p>restrictions on citizens’ domestic and international movements; and</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/eritrea">reports</a> of harsh punishments for those transgressing some of the state’s more repressive policies.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Many of the those individuals that are stopped from entering Europe, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11703636/Calais-migrants-Britain-to-build-huge-fence-at-Channel-Tunnel-port-in-France.html">barricaded in camps in Calais</a>, or ping-ponged between European member states on an increasingly frequent basis, are therefore part of complex transnational coping strategies. </p>
<h2>Futility of ‘migrant’, ‘refugee’ debate</h2>
<p>A distraction from understanding the problems faced by individuals in Europe and at its frontiers right now has been the obsession with how to categorise them. This is done purely according to their status in the immediate “here and now”. </p>
<p>Why people move is always a mixture of voluntary and involuntary factors. The compartmentalisation of people into economic migrants or refugees therefore obscures the fundamental ways in which these two groups are intimately related.</p>
<p>As is so clear in Eritrea, to mitigate against the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-thousands-of-asylum-seekers-are-fleeing-eritrea-and-risking-their-lives-in-the-mediterranean-40969">worst effects</a> of the state and its market, those individuals who can leave become “economic migrants”. What is important is that they do so precisely to protect their families and friends from becoming refugees themselves. </p>
<p><a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/03/24/uk-eritrea-eu-aid-idUKKBN0MK1I220150324">Plans by the EU</a> to reduce the numbers of individuals leaving Eritrea through <a href="http://en.rsf.org/erythree-eu-plans-to-provide-eritrea-s-28-04-2015,47814.html">development aid</a> thus epitomises the inability of policymakers to join up the dots between those leaving the country and those staying behind. Proposals such as these are weak for at least two reasons: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>when it is the violence perpetrated by a state which forces citizens to leave, channelling aid through those very same institutions may well fail to address any of the original problems; and</p></li>
<li><p>a few million pounds of development aid, as was the case in Eritrea, is often nothing compared to the scale of remittances that many states receive through their diaspora. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Role of remittances</h2>
<p>Policies that deny people the opportunity to provide financial support to friends and relatives outside of Europe, by seeing “migrants” and “refugees” as discrete groups of individuals, are self-defeating. We should rather support individuals to work in Europe, thus enabling them to send remittances to those who may not wish to undertake that journey themselves. </p>
<p>Allowing certain individuals to stay in Europe for work prevents whole families having to cross militarised borders, board ramshackle boats or pay huge fares to be smuggled in appalling conditions overland. Remittances provide a lifeline, both to individuals who remain within countries that are experiencing high degrees of violence, persecution and state failure, and for those who wish to remain in refugee camps near their country of origin.</p>
<p>Evidence abounds about the importance of remittances and the value of facilitating these global flows of money. The celebration of remittance economies nonetheless seems to have remained detached in the popular media from the broader debates on migration and asylum.</p>
<p>Remittances are not only <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22169474">quantitatively greater</a>, but also qualitatively <a href="http://www.thisisafricaonline.com/Development/Why-remittances-work-better-than-aid">more effective</a> at assisting local populations and catalysing their development. </p>
<p>Linking the importance of remittances to the debate about whether people are economic migrants or refugees is critical. Images of young women or men sitting on <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/report/101533/migrants-limbo-in-spain-s-african-enclave">fences at Melilla</a> or boarding trains in Europe often invoke the label “economic migrant”, as if to dismiss the critical importance of their journeys. </p>
<p>On the contrary, and alongside the fact that on too many occasions this label is wrongly applied instead of granting asylum, in certain situations it is entirely because of these “migrants” that other individuals in their families are not forced to become “refugees”. </p>
<p>Allowing people to come, work and send back remittances preempts the need for more people to leave their homes to escape the devastating effects of war, violence and economic collapse. In building fences, bombing boats and blocking borders, however, we undermine these strategies and contribute towards forcing certain people to leave their countries and claim asylum elsewhere. </p>
<p>Regardless of the labels used, it seems naive and counterproductive not to join these debates and movements together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgia Cole does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The European obsession with labeling people either economic migrants or refugees hampers understanding of the problems they face. Adding the role remittances play to the debate would help.Georgia Cole, Researcher in the Department of International Development, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/410932015-05-07T05:34:36Z2015-05-07T05:34:36ZWithout immigrants, none of us would be here<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80296/original/image-20150504-23520-yzkcbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most of the migrants desperately crossing the Mediterranean from Africa are refugees.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/STR</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><strong>Foundation essay</strong>: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in Africa. Our foundation essays are longer than usual and take a wider look at key issues affecting society.</em></p>
<p>In almost every country across the globe anti-immigrant sentiment is high. Already this year it is estimated that more than 1750 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean. Last weekend, ten people died and an <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32573389">estimated 5800 migrants</a> were rescued off the Libyan coast. Yet Europe’s callous attitude to immigrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa is not only unethical but also ill-informed and <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-war-on-migrants-while-we-argue-thousands-perish-in-the-mediterranean-40330">counterproductive</a>. </p>
<p>It’s a hostility echoed 7000 kilometres away in South Africa, where <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-29-xenophobia-the-past-comes-back-to-haunt-us">deadly attacks</a> on immigrants have been contained by <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/21/Xenophobia-Defence-force-to-be-deployed-to-Alex">the military</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, without immigration from Africa, none of us would be here. Experts now believe that <a href="https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/">migration across Africa</a> between 60,000 and 70,000 years ago saved homo sapiens from climate-induced extinction. </p>
<p>The migration of these early Africans into the Middle East, then across the Mediterranean into Europe and Asia – and eventually into the Americas and Australia and the Pacific Islands – is the origin of today’s humanity. It will be our attitudes to the continuing movement of people that will define our national and collective futures.</p>
<h2>Opposition to migration – and why it’s wrong</h2>
<p>It is not difficult to understand why people blame foreigners for their troubles. High unemployment, rising inequality and increasingly unaffordable homes are among the legitimate concerns of citizens everywhere.</p>
<p>A key part of the explanation for these troubles is the <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/about/director/books/butterfly-defect/">rising impact</a> of foreign influences on all our societies. Globalisation has been a positive force for human progress. It has raised average living standards, improved health, and led to political change – not least across Africa. But it also is the source of cascading financial crises, rising inequality, pandemics, climate change, the wrecking of ocean systems, increasing antibiotic resistance and diabetes and other health challenges.</p>
<p>People around the world are kicking back against this rising uncertainty by supporting <a href="https://theconversation.com/geert-wilders-is-back-and-he-has-european-domination-on-his-mind-15775">extremist</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukips-immigration-plan-is-not-realistic-but-it-really-doesnt-have-to-be-38405">parties</a> who wish to bring back protectionism and reverse globalisation. But blaming foreigners for our problems is a mistake. </p>
<h2>Migration should not be a scapegoat</h2>
<p>In the first place, average migration rates remain fairly low. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago the barriers to the movement of ideas, finance, trade and services have gone down, but the barriers to the movement of people have gone up. As a result, the <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-more-migration-makes-sense">share of migrants</a> in the world has remained roughly constant at 3% throughout the current era of globalisation.</p>
<p>Migrants are seldom the source of our societal ills. On the contrary, immigrants are a key contributor to the dynamism and growth in our societies. </p>
<p>Immigration is desirable for at least four reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>It is a source of innovation and dynamism; </li>
<li>It addresses labour shortages; </li>
<li>It can address demographic imbalances; and </li>
<li>It provides an escape from poverty and persecution. </li>
</ul>
<p>By contrast, limiting migration slows economic growth and undermines societies’ long-term competitiveness. It also creates a less prosperous, more unequal, and partitioned world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80294/original/image-20150504-23497-1ojnceg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80294/original/image-20150504-23497-1ojnceg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80294/original/image-20150504-23497-1ojnceg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80294/original/image-20150504-23497-1ojnceg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80294/original/image-20150504-23497-1ojnceg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80294/original/image-20150504-23497-1ojnceg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80294/original/image-20150504-23497-1ojnceg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-migrant sentiment continues to rear its head across the world, including recently in South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The cost of migration</h2>
<p>There are short-run, local costs to higher rates of migration that must be addressed if societies are to enjoy the much larger long-term benefits. These include the pressure on local housing and schooling arising from migration and the challenge to cultural homogeneity that migrants often pose. </p>
<p>Migrants can also take locals’ jobs, but the evidence suggests that because they also bolster growth and consumer demand, they tend not to depress overall wage levels or reduce the overall levels of employment of local workers.</p>
<p>The challenges posed by migration must and can be addressed through an honest and open discussion of the issues, but not become an excuse for shutting the frontier to migrants. Ensuring that all migrants are legally recognised and part of society, with all the necessary rights and also responsibilities that this implies, is a vital part of this process.</p>
<p>Despite domestic opposition in recipient countries, the number of international migrants has doubled over the past 25 years, and will double again by 2030. This is due to a combination of <a href="http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/newcountries.htm">new countries and borders being created</a> (34 have been created since 1990), population growth and migration pressures. Rapid economic and political change and, increasingly, environmental change threatens people and encourages the bravest to seek opportunity and security in new homes. </p>
<p>If this migratory process is allowed to take its course, it will stimulate global growth and serve to reduce poverty. However, it requires careful management to ensure that the benefits are harvested and the backlash of recipient societies does not lead to further polarisation.</p>
<h2>The economic case for greater migration</h2>
<p>While the incremental reduction of barriers to cross-border flows of capital, goods and services has been a major achievement of recent decades, international migration has never been more strictly controlled. Classical economists such as John Stuart Mill saw this as both economically illogical and ethically unacceptable. Adam Smith <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=rBiqT86BGQEC&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=the+free+circulation+of+labour+from+one+employment+to+another.&source=bl&ots=Zz25XfRHLW&sig=rUadLaI5szMUp372x5_rWTGqFaM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kVxHVf-MEYGE7gbHzYCIAw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=the%20free%20circulation%20of%20labour%20from%20one%20employment%20to%20another.&f=false">objected</a> to anything that obstructed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the free circulation of labour from one employment to another.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>By the 19th century, the development of steam and other transport meant that one-third of the population of Scandinavia, Ireland, and parts of Italy emigrated. Mass migration gave <a href="http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/europe-on-the-road/economic-migration/irial-glynn-emigration-across-the-atlantic-irish-italians-and-swedes-compared-1800-1950">millions of Europeans</a> an escape route from poverty and persecution, and fed the dynamism and development of countries like the US, the United Kingdom, and various colonies.</p>
<p>The rise of nationalism prior to the outbreak of the first world war led to the widespread introduction of passports and ushered in stricter controls on the international movement of people. One hundred years later, despite falling barriers to trade, finance and information, more than 100 countries have been created and the walls to free mobility have never been higher.</p>
<p>Approximately 230 million people now live in countries in which they were not born. These are the orphans of the international system.</p>
<h2>Migration helps alleviate poverty</h2>
<p>For the countries they leave, migrants do often <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/about/director/books/exceptional-people/">represent a brain drain</a>. Even so, they contribute significantly to their home countries. Taiwan and Israel are testimony to the role played by migrants abroad, with their diasporas providing crucial political support, investment flows, and technology transfer which has ensured the survival of these countries.</p>
<p>However, migration has historically been the most effective measure against poverty. Remittances sent home by migrants <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/10/06/remittances-developing-countries-five-percent-conflict-related-migration-all-time-high-wb-report">exceeded US$580 billion</a> in 2014. More than $430 billion of these flows went to developing countries.</p>
<p>In Africa, remittances are vital sources of income for many countries. Lesotho, Liberia and the Gambia received about 20% of their GDP from remittances.</p>
<h2>Everybody wins</h2>
<p>Both rich and poor countries would benefit from increased migration, with developing countries benefiting the most. It is estimated that increasing migration by just 3% of the workforce in developed countries between 2005 and 2025 would generate global gains of $356 billion, more than two-thirds of which would accrue to developing countries. </p>
<p>Although politically unrealistic, opening borders completely could produce gains as high as <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/about/director/books/globalisation/">$39 trillion</a> for the world economy over 25 years.</p>
<p>At certain times, such is the case in <a href="http://www.dw.de/lampedusa-suffers-under-weight-of-europes-refugee-crisis/a-18273580">Lampedusa</a> off the toe of Italy, or <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/8405312.stm">Slough</a> in England, the geographical proximity to a gateway may account for a disproportionately high share of migrants. </p>
<p>Places which have unusually high shares of migrants due to accidents of geography and history should not be forced to pay the costs for society as a whole. It is society as a whole that benefits and much more needs to be done to support places and people under stress from high levels of immigration.</p>
<p>But there is no magic threshold beyond which migration is unacceptable. In the thriving Dubai and other cities in the United Arab Emirates, migrants are <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/labor-migration-united-arab-emirates-challenges-and-responses">more than 90%</a> of the population. Cities such as Toronto have <a href="http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=dbe867b42d853410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD&vgnextchannel=57a12cc817453410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD">more than 50%</a> migrants and have been voted among the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/10/07/most-livable-city-toronto_n_5944330.html">best to live in</a> globally for many years. In the UK, London is the most dynamic and popular city – <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/migrants-uk-overview">more than 30%</a> are migrants.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80298/original/image-20150504-23483-1hduyac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80298/original/image-20150504-23483-1hduyac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80298/original/image-20150504-23483-1hduyac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80298/original/image-20150504-23483-1hduyac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80298/original/image-20150504-23483-1hduyac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80298/original/image-20150504-23483-1hduyac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80298/original/image-20150504-23483-1hduyac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Migrants make up more than 90% of the population of the United Arab Emirates, represented here by Dubai.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Ali Haider</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Targeting people smugglers doesn’t work</h2>
<p>Most of the migrants desperately crossing the Mediterranean are refugees. The dangers they face in the crossing reflect that, for many, their lives at home are so desperate that they are prepared to endure the terrible dangers associated with leaving. </p>
<p>The idea that clamping down on smugglers or destroying the smuggling boats would stop migrants fleeing is not borne out by the evidence. Other means will be found, perhaps even more dangerous. </p>
<p>The most ethically perverse of all the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/27/uk-mediterranean-migrant-rescue-plan">suggestions</a> is that if the migrants are left to drown it will somehow reduce the desire of migrants to attempt the crossing. </p>
<p>The tragically cynical arguments made by British and other officials justified ignoring frantic requests to support Italy’s stretched lifesaving efforts and led to a dramatic rise in unnecessary deaths. But it did not stop the flows of migrants. On the contrary, it led to the predictable rise in deaths at sea.</p>
<h2>Fresh thinking and bold action</h2>
<p>Citizens are understandably concerned about the failure of our politicians to show effective leadership on migration. The resulting failures are a cause of daily death. But not only are migrants suffering terribly. </p>
<p>So too are our economies and societies who would benefit enormously from more but also more effective management of migration. The public debate is too urgent and it is too important to be left to politicians. We urgently need fresh thinking followed by bold action.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Goldin is the author of 19 books, including Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped our World and Will Define our Future (Princeton University Press, 2011), Globalization for Development: Meeting New
Challenges (OUP, 2012) and The Butterfly Defect: How globalization creates systemic risks, and what to do about it (Princeton University Press, 2014). He is a trustee of the charity organisation Comic Relief.</span></em></p>The migration of early Africans into the Middle East, then across the Mediterranean into Europe and Asia – and eventually into the Americas and Australia and the Pacific Islands – is the origin of today’s humanity.Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development; Director of the Oxford Martin School, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.