Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC and “one of the unsung heroes of modern times,” according to Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, authorized his own biography before dying of brain cancer in 2019. Author Scott MacMillan wrote Hope Over Fate based on hundreds of hours of interviews with Abed and his friends, family and co-workers. Credit: courtesy of BRAC
Opinion by Scott MacMillan (redding conn, usa)
Inter Press Service
Redding Conn, USA, Aug 01 (IPS) – About seven years ago, I started working on a project with Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC. It was originally supposed to be a memoir: the story of Abed, the mild-mannered accountant who would rid the world of poverty, as told by the man himself.
I was privileged to be Abed’s speechwriter for the last several years of his life, and I would sit for hours listening to stories from his remarkable life: of his boyhood in British India, his love life in London in the 1960s, his three marriages, and how, in 1972, with a few thousand pounds from the sale of his flat in Camden, he launched a small nonprofit organization to aid refugees, originally called the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee. Many people would go on to call BRAC, which Abed led until his death in 2019, the world’s most effective anti-poverty organization.
That seemed like a story worth telling in full, and after some coaxing, Abed gave me permission to begin ghostwriting his autobiography. He was an exceptionally private person, however, and cringed at anything with a whiff of self-promotion. “You have me pontificating!” he once scolded me after an early draft of one speech.
I was about halfway done with his memoir when he told me to stop. The story, as I had written it, did not feel right coming from him. He much preferred to let BRAC’s work speak for itself—which may explain why so few people outside his native Bangladesh knew who he was or the magnitude of what he had accomplished.
Abed eventually came around to the idea that his story needed to be told by someone, even if it would not ultimately be him. He asked that I use the material I had gathered to write the book myself, in my own words—which I did, even knowing that many of those words would fall short of the task. The book, Hope Over Fate: Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty, is released today by Rowman & Littlefield.
An accountant’s story
Abed told stories, but he was not a good storyteller in the typical sense. He did not sprinkle his speeches with anecdotes of the “ordinary” people he had met, as politicians sometimes do. He was an accountant, and for him, numbers told stories.
So here is the story he would tell of his native Bangladesh—no names or faces, just a chorus of statistics. At the moment of its independence in 1971, Bangladesh was the world’s second-poorest country, with a per capita GDP of less than $100, a nation of sixty-six million living on a patch of flood-prone land the size of Iowa. One in four children died before their fifth birthday. As late as 1990, the country still had one of the highest maternal mortality rates, at 574 per 100,000.
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in his later years, visiting a BRAC school. Credit: courtesy of BRAC
In the 1990s, however, things began to change, rapidly and almost miraculously. Quality of life improved at a historically unprecedented rate. By 2013, under-five mortality had plummeted to just 40 per 1,000 live birthdays; maternal mortality had dropped similarly. These and other changes constituted “some of the biggest gains in the basic condition of people’s lives ever seen anywhere,” according to The Economist.
People standing up for themselves
What happened? Abed’s work had much to do with it. BRAC trained and mobilized people, giving them a sense of self-worth that many had never felt before. They began standing up for themselves against landlords, corrupt government officials, and imams opposed to women’s rights. Often, he found what people really needed was hope—a sense that, with a modicum of outside help, their fate could be in their own hands.
His methods were varied and novel. Incentive-based training gave health information to mothers so they could save their own children’s lives. Women took small loans from BRAC to buy cows and handlooms, the first time they had owned anything of substance. Since they had nowhere to sell the milk and fabric they produced, Abed built up the dairy and textile industries by launching enterprises that bought the women’s goods. These enterprises, owned by BRAC, turned out to be profitable, so he plowed the money back into the poverty programs. Abed also launched fifty thousand schools, plus a commercial bank and a university. BRAC now likely reaches more than one hundred million people in about a dozen countries in Africa and Asia. No other nonprofit or social enterprise has reached such scale.
Yet Abed was no ascetic, self-abnegating Gandhi. He left the office at a reasonable hour and enjoyed coming home to the comforts of domestic life, to the sound of family and the warm smell of spices from the kitchen. Twice a widower, he told me of his loneliness between his marriages, and how, despite his preoccupation with work, he found it hard to return to an empty house.
The science of hope
How, then, did he do it? Remarkably, Abed would sometimes say that BRAC had done relatively little to help Bangladesh rise from the ranks of one of the poorest nations on earth. It merely created the enabling conditions: it was the poor themselves, especially women, who worked tirelessly, once those conditions were in place, to change the conditions of their lives.
I suspect this is why he thought his own story did not deserve so much attention, especially compared to the millions of women who had long labored on the fringes of society, who would one day, in his words, “be their own actors in history, and write their own stories of triumph over adversity.”
So this is the biography of a man, yes, but it is also the biography of an idea—the idea that hope itself has the power to overcome poverty. Near the end of his life, Abed spoke of “the science of hope”—the study and practice of giving people a sense of control over their own lives. “For too long, people thought poverty was something ordained by a higher power, as immutable as the sun and the moon,” he wrote in 2018. His life’s mission was to put that myth to rest, which is why the story of Abed is the story of the triumph of hope over fate.
A hundred Central American migrants were rescued from an overcrowded trailer truck in the Mexican state of Tabasco. It has been impossible to stop people from making the hazardous journey of thousands of kilometers to the United States due to the lack of opportunities in their countries of origin. CREDIT: Mesoamerican Migrant Movement
by Edgardo Ayala (san salvador)
Inter Press Service
SAN SALVADOR, Jul 19 (IPS) – The immigration agreement reached in Los Angeles, California at the end of the Summit of the Americas, hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden, raises more questions than answers and the likelihood that once again there will be more noise than actual benefits for migrants, especially Central Americans.
And immigration was once again the main issue discussed at the Jul. 12 bilateral meeting between Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Biden at the White House.
At the meeting, López Obrador asked Biden to facilitate the entry of “more skilled” Mexican and Central American workers into the U.S. “to support” the economy and help curb irregular migration.
Central American analysts told IPS that it is generally positive that immigration was addressed at the June summit and that concrete commitments were reached. But they also agreed that much remains to be done to tackle the question of undocumented migration.
That is especially true considering that the leaders of the three Central American nations generating a massive flow of poor people who risk their lives to reach the United States, largely without papers, were absent from the meeting.
Just as the Ninth Summit of the Americas was getting underway on Jun. 6 in Los Angeles, an undocumented 15-year-old Salvadoran migrant began her journey alone to the United States, with New York as her final destination.
She left her native San Juan Opico, in the department of La Libertad in central El Salvador.
“We communicate every day, she tells me that she is in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and that everything is going well according to plan. They give them food and they are not mistreating her, but they don’t let her leave the safe houses,” Omar Martinez, the Salvadoran uncle of the migrant girl, whose name he preferred not to mention, told IPS.
She was able to make the journey because her mother, who is waiting for her in New York, managed to save the 15,000-dollar cost of the trip, led as always by a guide or “coyote”, as they are known in Central America, who in turn form part of networks in Guatemala and Mexico that smuggle people across the border between Mexico and the United States.
The meeting of presidents in Los Angeles “was marked by the issue of temporary jobs, and the presidents of key Central American countries were absent, so there was a vacuum in that regard,” researcher Silvia Raquec Cum, of Guatemala’s Pop No’j Association, told IPS.
In fact, neither the presidents of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, or El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, attended the conclave due to political friction with the United States, in a political snub that would have been hard to imagine just a few years ago.
Other Latin American presidents boycotted the Summit of the Americas as an act of protest, such as Mexico’s López Obrador, precisely because Washington did not invite the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which it considers dictatorships.
From rural communities like this one, the village of Huisisilapa in the municipality of San Pablo Tacachico in central El Salvador, where there are few possibilities of finding work, many people set out for the United States, often without documents, in search of the “American dream”. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
More temporary jobs
Promoting more temporary jobs is one of the commitments of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection adopted at the Summit of the Americas and signed by some twenty heads of state on Jun. 10 in that U.S. city.
“Temporary jobs are an important issue, but let’s remember that economic questions are not the only way to address migration. Not all migration is driven by economic reasons, there are also situations of insecurity and other causes,” Raquec Cum emphasized.
Moreover, these temporary jobs do not allow the beneficiaries to stay and settle in the country; they have to return to their places of origin, where their lives could be at risk.
“It is good that they (the temporary jobs) are being created and are expanding, but we must be aware that the beneficiaries are only workers, they are not allowed to settle down, and there are people who for various reasons no longer want to return to their countries,” researcher Danilo Rivera, of the Central American Institute of Social and Development Studies, told IPS from the Guatemalan capital.
The Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection states that it “seeks to mobilize the entire region around bold actions that will transform our approach to managing migration in the Americas.”
The Declaration is based on four pillars: stability and assistance for communities; expansion of legal pathways; humane migration management; and coordinated emergency response.
The focus on expanding legal pathways includes Canada, which plans to receive more than 50,000 agricultural workers from Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean in 2022.
While Mexico will expand the Border Worker Card program to include 10,000 to 20,000 more beneficiaries, it is also offering another plan to create job opportunities in Mexico for 15,000 to 20,000 workers from Guatemala each year.
The United States, for its part, is committed to a 65 million dollar pilot program to help U.S. farmers hire temporary agricultural workers, who receive H-2A visas.
“It is necessary to rethink governments’ capacity to promote regular migration based on temporary work programs when it is clear that there is not enough labor power to cover the great needs in terms of employment demands,” said Rivera from Guatemala.
He added that despite the effort put forth by the presidents at the summit, there is no mention at all of the comprehensive reform that has been offered for several years to legalize some 11 million immigrants who arrived in the United States without documents.
A reform bill to that effect is currently stalled in the U.S. Congress.
Many of the 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States come from Central America, especially Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as Mexico.
While the idea of immigration reform is not moving forward in Congress, more than 60 percent of the undocumented migrants have lived in the country for over a decade and have more than four million U.S.-born children, the New York Times reported in January 2021.
This population group represents five percent of the workforce in the agriculture, construction and hospitality sectors, the report added.
Despite the risks involved in undertaking the irregular, undocumented journey to the United States, many Salvadorans continue to make the trip, and many are deported, such as the people seen in this photo taken at a registration center after they were sent back to San Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
More political asylum
The Declaration also includes another important component of the migration agreement: a commitment to strengthen political asylum programs.
For example, among other agreements in this area, Canada will increase the resettlement of refugees from the Americas and aims to receive up to 4,000 people by 2028, the Declaration states.
For its part, the United States will commit to resettle 20,000 refugees from the Americas during fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
“What I took away from the summit is the question of creating a pathway to address the issue of refugees in the countries of origin,” Karen Valladares, of the National Forum for Migration in Honduras, told IPS from Tegucigalpa.
She added: “In the case of Honduras, we are having a lot of extra-regional and extra-continental population traffic.”
Valladares said that while it is important “to enable refugee processes for people passing through our country, we must remember that Honduras is not seen as a destination, but as a transit country.”
Raquec Cum, of the Pop No’j Association in Guatemala, said “They were also talking about the extension of visas for refugees, but the bottom line is how they are going to carry out this process; there are specific points that were signed and to which they committed themselves, but the how is what needs to be developed.”
Meanwhile, the Salvadoran teenager en route to New York has told her uncle that she expects to get there in about a month.
“She left because she wants to better herself, to improve her situation, because in El Salvador it is expensive to live,” said Omar, the girl’s uncle.
“I have even thought about leaving the country, but I suffer from respiratory problems and could not run a lot or swim, for example, and sometimes you have to run away from the migra (border patrol),” he said.
Stanford, Jul 18 (IPS) – Veronica Vega’s husband was the first in the family to immigrate to Oakland, California. When 27 years ago Vega decided to join him, she was five months pregnant and walked across the Mexican border to come to the United States.
“It was a horrible experience. It was so sad to leave your country, your town, and your family behind. Everything was different – the country, the language, the community. That’s why I looked around to find somewhere I could belong,” Vega reflected.
She discovered Safe Passages, an organization that supports youth and families by providing enhanced services and community development through various programs. Vega no longer felt alone.
Now, Vega is the Community Development Manager at Safe Passages, and she assists other immigrants in getting the help they need to integrate into US society successfully.
Vega tells of a success story. She helped a family from Tijuana, Mexico, receive their acceptance to the renowned Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA is an immigration policy that provides immigrants who came to the US as a child a work permit and a two-year period to reside in the country without facing deportation. After two years, immigrants need to submit a renewal application for DACA. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) allows renewal subject to requirements.
The mother of two fled from Mexico to California because she faced domestic violence from her husband. She and her children contacted Safe Passages, where they met Vega.
Safe Passages serves about 5,000 families annually. One of their programs focuses on helping children who may face deportation due to their refugee status. Vega connected this family to one of their partners, East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC).
A private lawyer through EBCLC helped them receive their permanent residencies, and the service they received was free.
“When I heard they were considered permanent residents of the United States, I was so happy. They never realized they would receive anything, and I was so happy,” Vega said.
Vega helps families who fear deportation. She aids about 1,500 families per year with immigration resources.
She wants to partner with more non-profit organizations to help immigrant families.
“I was accepted into this country, and I love to work in the community. I love to help people regardless of race, age, and status,” Vega explained.
Alicia Perez, Chief Operating Officer of Safe Passages, described how the different programs at Safe Passages interconnect.
Safe Passages aims to support families with children with a big focus on school-based programs. They have after-school and tutoring programs, family resources, and health centers. Safe Passages makes the information accessible by ensuring materials are in the migrants’ home languages – informing them about their civil rights.
The organization provides immigrant families with Red Cards created by the immigrant Legal Resource Center. The Red Card informs families about their rights under the US Constitution, whether they are immigrants or not. Safe Passages asks families to carry their Red Cards in case they are stopped by law enforcement or the police.
“We believe all children should have access to education, health care, and support. By doing so, they are most likely to live fulfilling lives and be successful, regardless of race, economic status, ethnicity, or gender,” Perez said.
Refugee Processing Center’s Refugee Admission Report releases data on the number of refugee arrivals. California had the highest refugee arrivals from October 1, 2021, through May 31, 2022, with 1,128 people arriving in the state.
Florencia Reyes Donohue, a senior paralegal in Kids in Need of Defense’s (KIND) San Francisco office, helps prepare and file forms for unaccompanied child clients seeking protection in the US.
KIND’s mission is to ensure that no child goes into immigration court without high-quality legal representation and that unaccompanied children have access to the protection they need and deserve. The organization partners with pro bono attorneys from more than 700 law firms and corporations to represent clients at no cost.
KIND worked with 29,000 children from 2009 to 2021. In addition to legal services, they provide holistic care through its social services program. KIND ensured that children would have an easier time adjusting to a country they were unfamiliar with by addressing their traumas. KIND offers counseling referrals, social-emotional support, health insurance assistance, school enrollment, and job placements, among other services.
Reyes Donohue said she admired the bravery the children she worked with had. “They do this journey alone; they are incredibly resilient.”
Fathers attend their kids’ soccer team practices and Safe Passages’ parenting workshops. Safe Passages provides immigration information, parenting workshops, and referrals during these practices. Credit: Safe Passages
Mexican workers harvest produce on a farm in the western U.S. state of California. The number of temporary agricultural workers from Mexico has increased in recent years in the United States and with it, human rights violations. CREDIT: Courtesy of Linnaea Mallette
by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
Inter Press Service
MEXICO CITY, Jul 08 (IPS) – Eduardo Reyes, originally from Puebla in central Mexico, was offered a 40-hour workweek contract by his recruiter and his employer in the United States, but ended up performing hundreds of hours of unpaid work that was not authorized because his visa had expired, unbeknownst to him.
Hired by recruiter Vazquez Citrus & Hauling (VCH), Reyes and five other temporary workers reached the United States between May and September 2017, months before starting work for Four Star Greenhouse in the Midwest state of Michigan.
In 2018, they worked more than 60 hours per week, received bad checks, and never obtained a copy of their contract, even though U.S. laws require that they be given one.
When they complained to Four Star and to their recruiter about the exploitative conditions, the latter turned them over to immigration authorities for deportation in July of that year because their visas had expired, which they had not been informed of by their agent.
In December 2017, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) authorized the arrival of 145 workers to the Four Star facilities in Carleton, Michigan. They were to earn 12.75 dollars per hour for 36 hours a week between January and July 2018.
Reyes’ case is set forth in complaint 2:20-CV-11692, seen by IPS, filed in the Southern Division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by six Mexican workers against the company and its manager, whom they accuse of wage gouging, forced labor and workplace reprisals.
This story of exploitation has an aggravating factor that shows the shortcomings of the U.S. government’s H-2A temporary agricultural workers program, or H-2A visa program.
The United States created H-2 visas for unskilled temporary foreign workers in 1943 and in the 1980s established H-2A categories for rural workers and 2B for other labor, such as landscaping, construction, and hotel staff.
These visas allow Mexicans, mainly from rural areas, to migrate seasonally to the U.S. to work legally on farms included on a list, with the intermediation of recruiting companies.
In 2016, the US Department of Transportation fined VCH, based in the state of Florida, for 22,000 dollars for a bus accident in which six H-2A workers were killed while returning from Monroe, Michigan to Mexico.
Two years later, the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division banned VCH and its owner for three years due to program violations in the state of North Carolina, such as failure to reimburse travel expenses and payroll and workday records. However, both continued to operate in the sector.
The workers’ odyssey begins in Mexico, where they are recruited by individual contractors -workers or former workers of a U.S. employer, colleagues, relatives or friends in their home communities – or by private U.S. agencies.
Structural problem
Reyes’ case illustrates the problems of labor exploitation, forced labor and the risk of human trafficking to which participants in the H-2A program are exposed, without intervention by Mexican or U.S. authorities to prevent human rights violations.
Advocates for the rights of the seasonal workers and experts pointed to worsening working conditions, warned of the threat of human trafficking and forced labor, and complained about the prevailing impunity.
According to Lilián López, representative in Mexico of the U.S.-based Polaris Project, the design and operation of the program result in a high risk of human trafficking and forced labor, due to factors such as the lack of supervision and interference by recruiters.
“Economic vulnerability puts migrants at risk, because many workers go into debt to get to the United States, and that gives the agencies a lot of power. They can set any kind of requirement for people to get the jobs. Sometimes recruiters make offers that look more attractive than they really are. That is fraud,” she told IPS in Mexico City.
The number of calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline operated by Polaris in the US reflects the apparent increase in abuses. Between 2015 and 2017, 800 people on temporary visas, 500 of which were H-2A, called the hotline, compared to 2,890 people between 2018 and 2020 – a 360 percent increase.
Evy Peña, spokesperson for Mexico’s Migrant Rights Center, said temporary labor systems are designed to benefit employers, who have all the control, along with the recruiters.
“From the moment the workers are recruited, there is no transparency. There is a lack of oversight by the DOL, there are parts of recruitment that should be overseen by the Mexican government. There are things that the Mexican government should work out at home,” she told IPS from the northern city of Monterrey.
She said the situation has worsened because of the pandemic.
The United States and Mexico have idealized the H-2A program because it solves the lack of employment in rural areas, foments remittances that provide financial oxygen to those areas, and meets a vital demand in food-producing centers that supply U.S. households.
But the humanitarian costs are high, as the cases reviewed attest. Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare has 369 labor placement agencies registered in 29 of Mexico’s 33 states. For overseas labor recruitment, seven operate – including four in Mexico City -, a small number compared to the thousands of visas issued in 2021.
For its part, the DOL reports 241 licensed recruiters in the US working for a handful of companies in that country.
The ones authorized in Mexico do not appear on the US list and vice versa, in another example of the scarce exchange of information between the two partners.
The number of H-2A visas for Mexican workers is on the rise, with the U.S. government authorizing 201,123 in 2020, a high number driven by the pandemic. That number grew 22 percent in 2021, to a total of 246,738.
In the first four months of the year, U.S. consulates in Mexico issued 121,516 such visas, 18 percent more than in the same period of 2021, when they granted 102,952.
In 2021, the states with the highest demand for Mexican labor were Florida, Georgia, California, Washington and North Carolina, in activities such as agriculture, the operation of farm equipment and construction.
The United States and Mexico agreed to issue another 150,000 visas for temporary workers in an attempt to mitigate forced migration from the south, which will also include Central American seasonal workers.
Details of the expansion of the program will be announced by Presidents Joe Biden and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at a meeting to be held on Jul. 12 at the White House, with migration as one of the main topics on the agenda.
Mexican farm workers wait to be tested for COVID-19 in 2020 in Immolakee, a town in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida. The pandemic hit H-2A visa holders, who are mainly engaged in temporary agricultural work, hard. CREDIT: Doctors Without Borders
Indifference
Lidia Muñoz, a doctoral student at the University of Oregon in the United States who has studied labor recruitment, stresses that there are no policies on the subject in Mexico, even though the government is aware of the problem.
“There are regulations for recruitment agencies that are not followed to the letter,” she told IPS from Portland, the largest city in the northwestern state of Oregon. “Most recruiters are not registered. The intermediaries are the ones who earn the most. There is no proper oversight.”
Article 28 of Mexico’s Federal Labor Law of 1970 regulates the provision of services by workers hired within Mexico for work abroad, but in practice it is not enforced.
This regulation requires the registration of contracts with the labor authorities and the posting of a bond to guarantee compliance, and makes the foreign contractor responsible for transportation to and from the country, food and immigration expenses, as well as full payment of wages, compensation for occupational hazards and access to adequate housing.
In addition, Mexican workers must be entitled to social security for foreigners in the country where they offer their services.
While the Mexican government could resort to this article to protect the rights of migrants, it has refused to apply it.
Between 2009 and 2019, the Ministry of Labor conducted 91 inspections of labor placement agencies in nine states and imposed 12 fines for about 153,000 dollars, but did not fine any recruiters of seasonal workers. Furthermore, the records of the Federal Court of Conciliation and Arbitration do not contain labor lawsuits for breach of that regulation.
In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) does not know how many H-2A workers it has assisted through consular services. Likewise, it does not know how many complainants it has advised.
The Mexican consulate in Denver, Colorado received three labor complaints, dated Jul. 25, Aug. 12 and Oct. 28, 2021, which it referred to “specialized allies in the matter, who provided the relevant advice to the interested parties,” according to an SRE response to a request for information from IPS.
The consulate in Washington received “anonymous verbal reports” on labor issues, which it passed on to civil society organizations so that “the relevant support could be provided.”
Consular teams were active in some parts of the US in 2021. For example, Mexican officials visited eight corporations between May and September 2021 in Denver, Colorado.
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania they visited 12 companies between April and August, 2021. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin they visited 26 companies between June 2021 and April of this year, and in Washington, DC six workplaces were visited between August and October 2021. However, the results of these visits are unknown.
These guidelines stipulate that hiring must be done in accordance with human rights, through voluntary agreements, free from deception or coercion, and with specific, verifiable and understandable conditions of employment, with no attached charges or job immobility.
Ariel Ruiz, an analyst with the U.S.-based Migration Policy Institute, is concerned about the expansion of the H-2A visa program without improvements in rights.
“There are labour rights violations before the workers arrive in the US, in recruitment there are often illegal payments, and we keep hearing reports of employers intimidating workers,” he told IPS from Washington.
“There are also problems in access to health services and legal representation” in case of abuse, added the analyst from the non-governmental institute.
Judicialization
In the last decade, at least 12 lawsuits have been filed in US courts by program workers against employers.
Muñoz, the expert from Oregon, said the trials can help reform the system.
“There have been cases that have resulted in visas for trafficking victims. But it is difficult to see changes in the United States. They may be possible in oversight. Legal changes have arisen because of wage theft from workers,” she said.
López, of Polaris, said the lawsuits were a good thing, but clarified that they did not solve the systemic problems. “What is needed is a root-and-branch reform of the system,” she said.
The United States has made trade union freedom in Mexico a priority. Peña asked that it also address the H-2A visa situation.
“If they’re serious about improving labor rights, they can’t ignore the responsibility they have for migrant workers. It’s like creating a double standard,” she said.
With regard to the expansion of the temporary visa program to Central Americans, the experts consulted expressed concern that it would lead to an increase in abuses.
This article was produced with support from the organizations Dignificando el Trabajo and the Avina Foundation’s Arropa Initiative in Mexico.
Damage caused by arsonists during a xenophobic attack in Johannesburg. Credit: Lwazi Khumalo/IPS
by Fawzia Moodley (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
Johannesburg, Jul 07 (IPS) – Around the world, from Syria to Libya, from Bangladesh to Ukraine, millions have become refugees in foreign lands due to war, famine, or political and economic instability in their countries.
After South Africa gained freedom in 1994, Africa’s powerhouse became a magnet for migrants from politically and economically unstable African and Asian countries. But in recent years, with the country facing an economic meltdown and an unemployment rate of about 37 percent, waves of xenophobic attacks have shattered the dreams of migrant communities.
Since 2008 when at least 62 people were killed, thousands of migrants have faced intermittent attacks, been left homeless, or have had their shops burnt or looted.
Locals blame the migrants for taking away their jobs and the increase in crimes such as hijackings (armed vehicle robbery), human trafficking, and drug peddling (mainly attributed to Nigerians).
Migrant street vendors and artisans provide valuable services to the community. Lwazi Khumalo/IPS
Politicians, such as former Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba, blame foreign nationals for the country’s socio-economic woes, adding to the cocktail of anti-migrant sentiment. Other politicians and even some members of the ruling African National Congress(ANC), battling for its political life, have taken to “scapegoating” foreign nationals.
The rise of the Dudula movement (meaning pushback in isiZulu) has further whipped up anti-migrant sentiment. On June 11 and 12, 2022, stallholders at the Yeoville market in inner-city Johannesburg had to close shop after Operation Dudula threatened to remove foreigners from their stalls. The stallholders are mainly Congolese migrants.
On the night of June 20, arsonists set fire to 23 stalls destroying goods worth about R500,000 (about 30,500 US dollars). It’s suspected that the fire was linked to or inspired by the Dudula group – although the group denied complicity.
A stallholder who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity said a group of people seen loitering near the market that night is believed to have started the fire. The distraught mother of four said she could not do business because all her stock had been destroyed. Worse still, she owed her suppliers because she bought on credit and planned to repay them later.
South Africa’s logistics industry and supply chain are also under threat, with the All Truck Drivers’ Foundation (ADTF) blocking the country’s main transport routes, setting trucks on fire, and attacking foreign truck drivers.
IPS spoke to a long-haul driver, a documented Zimbabwean who has been in South Africa for 11 years. The driver, who did not want to be identified, says he transports coal from a mine in Mpumalanga to Botswana and has been forced to send his family back to Zimbabwe.
“I have been sitting at home for three days because I am too frightened to go to work. I didn’t steal anyone’s job because the company has a set rate. I am not undercutting anyone,” he says.
Amir Sheikh, leader of the African Diaspora Forum, with Nicholas Mabena Ngqabatho, Executive Director of the ADF. Credit: Fawzia Moodley/IPS
Amir Sheikh, leader of The African Diaspora Forum (ADF), says foreign nationals are not taking away jobs from locals: “There are at most about four million migrants in a population of over 60 million. So how can they be taking away every South African’s job?
He argues that foreign nationals benefit the country.
“They pay taxes and open shops in areas where elderly people on social grants and the poor have to travel long distances to buy essentials; they even sell goods on credit to customers. Poor township residents and pensioners also supplement their income by renting rooms up to R4,000 a month (about 300 US dollars) to foreign nationals.”
“In areas like Yeoville, migrants pay up to R7000 (about 425 US dollars) for accommodation to local landlords,” Jean Bwasa, another activist, adds.
Amir admits that there are criminal elements among foreign nationals.
“Just as much as there are criminals among South Africans.”
He laughs at the notion that all Nigerians are drug lords.
“How many people realize that the Yebo! Gogo man, the face of South Africa’s popular Vodacom cellular operator’s TV ad, Professor Kole Omotoso, is a Nigerian? His son Akin, a renowned filmmaker? Are they criminals?”
Nicholas Mabena Ngqabatho, Executive Director of the ADF, is working with union federation Cosatu to recruit foreign nationals into trade unions to protect them from exploitative bosses taking advantage of their desperate situation.
He says that many foreign truckers who come under attack are cross-border drivers.
“They are not taking away locals’ jobs but are part of a supply chain across Africa that is being disrupted by xenophobic attacks to the detriment of the South African economy.”.
Ngqabatho says foreign nationals run the gauntlet of extortion, attacks, and bureaucracy around documentation, such as the government’s decision to end the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) granted to Zimbabweans who came to SA before 2009.
The ADF is fighting to retain the ZEP on behalf of about 178 000 Zimbabweans. They face the prospect of becoming undocumented migrants, making them vulnerable to extortion and exploitation or forcing them to return to the country they fled for political or economic reasons.
Sheikh says it’s not all doom and gloom, and are cases of inter-community solidarity in areas like Alexandra (a township in Johannesburg). Recently an alleged Dudula movement member was forced to make a hurried retreat when the local community became angered by an attempt to evict a foreign national from her home.
A wall with rental advertisements on Jules street in Johannesburg where migrants rent flats or rooms from South African landlords. Credit: Lwazi Khumalo/IPS
A study by the World Bank, Mixed Migration, Forced Displacement and Job Outcomes in South Africa, underlines the urban dimensions of migrancy into and within South Africa (from provinces like the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal to economic hubs like Johannesburg and Cape Town). It highlights that both categories of migrants face the same challenges of poverty, overcrowding, high crime, and drug and alcohol abuse.
“In this sense, development actors often find it impossible to differentiate between the vulnerabilities that internal migrants, refugees, and locals face in urban areas,” the report states.
Debunking the myth that foreign nationals are ‘stealing’ jobs from locals or are better off than locals is the finding that “one immigrant worker generated approximately two jobs for local residents in South Africa between 1996 and 2011”.
According to World Bank, “immigrants and locals are likely to specialize in performing different and sometimes complementary tasks, which can lead to overall productivity gains and positive impacts on local employment and wages.”
The report further confirms the ADF’s contention that migrants create employment for South Africans. The report stated that “25% of immigrants are self-employed, possibly reflecting the demand for the diverse set of entrepreneurial skills they bring, which can result in large multiplier effects.”
BRUSSELS, Jul 04 (IPS) – A mass attempt on June 24, 2022, of about 2000 African migrants to scale the border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla left at least 37 people dead.
Several human rights organizations call for an investigation into what ranks as the deadliest day in recent memory along this section of the EU’s only land border with Africa. Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, congratulated the coordinated action of the Spanish Civil Guard and the Moroccan security forces. He blamed the mafias and smugglers for the deaths.
On the other hand, Moussa Faki Mahamat, the head of the African Union Commission, expressed “my deep shock and concern at the violent and degrading treatment of African migrants attempting to cross an international border from Morocco into Spain.”
Also Esteban Beltrán, director of Amnesty International Spain, stated: “It is time to put an end to this policy which allows and encourages serious human rights violations. A ‘business as usual’ approach is no longer valid amid the blood and shame”. It is essential “to understand our double standards and ensure that all refugees have the opportunity – as Ukrainians have had – to escape war and repression by seeking asylum through legal and safe channels”.
Mixed Migration Centre
The Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) is a global network engaged in mixed migration data collection, research, analysis, and policy and program development. Their June 2022 report, entitled “Security costs: How the EU’s exclusionary migration policies place people on the move toward Italy and Greece at greater risk – a quantitative analysis”, puts the migration issues in perspective.
The MMC report clearly documents the main protection risks faced by Asian and African migrants and refugees as they travel to Europe along the Central Mediterranean Route (CMR), the Eastern Mediterranean Route (EMR) and the Western Balkans Route (WBR).
The report confirms that a ‘securitized approach’—one that often criminalizes refugees and migrants— coupled with a lack of legal and safe mobility pathways is reducing the protection space for people moving along the main migration routes to and through Europe.
Since its inception in 2014 and through early 2021 MMC’s 4Mi survey has conducted more than 75,000 interviews (that’s about 1,000 interviews per month). The refugees and migrants who took part in the surveys feel that their journey to Europe poses serious risks, including detention, physical and sexual violence, robbery, bribery/extortion and even death.
Children are also exposed to similar protection risks, including detention. The three routes each pose their own specific protection risks, but also share common challenges. Militias are most prevalent on the CMR, and ‘state’ actors on the EMR and the WBR, while criminal gangs are frequently reported across all three routes.
Smugglers are a concern among respondents but are rarely considered to be the main perpetrators of abuse. The CMR—and Libya in particular—is more often reported as dangerous. On the EMR and the WBR routes, migrants and refugees often indicate Turkey, Iran, and Greece as locations where protection incidents are more likely to occur.
Refugees and migrants use a number of strategies to mitigate the risks they expect to face, such as traveling in groups and carrying cash. The latter to prevent them from having to work (under lousy exploitative conditions) to pay for their travels, or to buy themselves ‘free’ and avoid other problems.
Opinions on protection risks are in line with what other studies and reports have noted: that abuse, violence and death are common when migrants and refugees travel through the countries where European externalization policies are implemented — most notably Libya, Niger and Mali across the CMR, and Turkey in the EMR.
Against this background, the externalization policies of the EU and its Member States, and their partnerships with authorities in third countries, remain a major concern in terms of their ethical and financial costs and their impact on the protection of people on the move. Only for the EU does this policy seem effective because arrivals in Europe along various migration routes have been reduced.
In fact, however, it is very likely that the current approach increases the protection risks of migrants and refugees. Indeed, studies have confirmed how these measures violate international and human rights standards set for the protection of people on the run.
A case in point is Europe’s ongoing collaboration with the Libyan coast guard to intercept and return large numbers of migrants and refugees to Tripoli, the city most often considered to be dangerous by the migrants, and one that human rights groups and international organizations have often mentioned in connection to severe forms of violence against, and the unlawful detention of migrants and refugees.
A 2021 report by Amnesty International, for example, highlighted that physical violence and other abuses in Libya had shown no indication of diminishing over the past decade.
The awareness of migrants and refugees of the protection risks in the CMR also points to something else: that there is a feeling that such risks are inevitable on these migration journeys to Europe. One explanation could be that increasingly restrictive border controls and the lack of legal routes mean that migrants and refugees seeking to enter Europe have no other options. Greece is a case in point.
Numerous reports and studies have demonstrated how the EU-Turkey Statement and tighter border controls across the WBR have stemmed the flow of people and exposed migrants to considerable protection risks by forcing them to take highly perilous routes.
Also, the widespread tendency to indiscriminately incarcerate migrants entering the country for lengthy periods of time, in line with the implementation of the EU-Turkey deal, as well as the practice of pushbacks by the Greek coast guard might have led migrants and refugees to opt for the more dangerous, yet more available, paths to Europe.
Bangladeshis, for example, for whom it seems “easier” and safer to use the EMR route, have chosen to try the dangerous crossing via the CMR from Libya to Italy. The question is therefore: why do respondents in the survey continue to use certain routes and locations, despite the many known and very real risks?
The tightening of border controls increases the reliance on smugglers to evade border controls, with smugglers decreasing the chances of arrest by employing increasingly dangerous strategies, ultimately increasing the risks to refugees and migrants.
Such strategies include departing on longer and therefore more dangerous sea and desert routes, choosing unsafe embarkation and boarding points and dumping people on ‘boats’ in rough seas.
The findings of this study regarding the most common perpetrators of abuse across the three routes raise questions about the implications of the EU approach to protecting people on the move.
The prominence of militias and armed gangs are the main perpetrators of abuse reported by respondents who have traveled the CMR. In addition, they traverse areas marked by ongoing political instability, conflict and insecurity, and the collapse of the rule of law.
Nevertheless, the role played by militias and gangs in the protection risks faced by migrants and refugees cannot be separated from the EU’s externalization policies or its interaction with local political economies.
Libya and Niger have been systematically engaged by the EU to stem migratory flows and fight migrant smuggling and human trafficking. Local militias have sometimes even become involved in fighting smuggling groups and/or intercepting refugees and migrants at sea and returning them to Libya.
In summary, while it would be simplistic to argue that EU border policy alone creates all the protection risks faced by migrants and refugees, there seems to be a worrying alignment between the perpetrators the migrants fear most and the actors who secured the funding mobilized by the EU for migration management and the fight against people smuggling.
While the data shows that smugglers remain a major concern for people fleeing to Europe, respondents say they are rarely among the most common perpetrators of violence. These findings indicate that an EU approach mainly focused on ‘securitisation’ and the fight against people smuggling – an approach based on the argument that breaking the so-called business model of smuggling would ensure the safety of refugees and migrants by ending making their perilous crossing of the Mediterranean — may not be as effective as portrayed in political and policy circles.
Recommendations
The Center for Mixed Migration calls on policy makers and authorities to improve European migration management policies, in particular the full implementation of the objectives set out in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees. The EU and its Member States should:
• Provide detailed and evidence-based analyzes of the impact of EU cooperation with third country partners on both human rights and local economies affected by the implementation of EU externalization measures. These analyzes should be performed on a case-by-case basis for all affected communities in each partner country;
• Support the sharing of information on perpetrators of human rights violations between law enforcement actors at national and international level, including outside Europe, while ensuring that all cooperation is in line with international human rights and refugee law;
• Expanding cooperation with the Government of Turkey to increase its capacity in all provinces to properly implement refugee status and provide international protection, taking into account age-, gender- and diversity-specific vulnerabilities and protection challenges (e.g. Afghans, single women with children and young men);
• All aid that contributes to the interception, return and often detention of refugees and migrants in shutting down Libya, as it is not a safe place. Also ensure that no one is at risk of inhumane and degrading treatment in Libya and support humanitarian programs that respond to the needs of the people;
• Improving the monitoring of deaths along migration routes to Europe by including more details in the data systems on deaths along the route;
• Open new channels of legal entry and strengthen existing ones by granting humanitarian visas, creating humanitarian corridors between transit countries and Europe, expanding Member States’ resettlement programs and facilitating alternative legal routes, such as family reunification, university scholarships and training programmes.
A man sells poultry in Refugees Market, Peshawar, on 17 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
by Ashfaq Yusufzai (peshawar)
Inter Press Service
PESHAWAR, Jun 23 (IPS) – “We came here in 1979 after Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. My children and grandchildren have grown up here and they don’t want to go back to that war-ravaged country. I go there occasionally to mourn the deaths of near and dear ones,” says Muhammad Jabbar, 67, a former resident of Kabul, capital of Afghanistan.
Jabbar, who sells dry fruits in Muhajir Bazaar (known as the ‘refugees market’), in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, said that he hadn’t been able to convince his family members to visit their country due to the endless violence.
The latest in that series of events was the takeover by Taliban militants in August 2021, which has further heightened Jabbar’s fears that even he may no longer be able to visit his native land. At the same time he acknowledges that Pakistan is now the family’s home and calls the local people ‘friendly’.
This South Asian nation is home to 3.3 million registered refugees and more than double this number of unregistered ones who have fled neighbouring Afghanistan. Most of them run small businesses or do petty jobs and send remittances to their family members who remain across the border.
A vegetable seller in the same market, Hayat Shah, says business is so good that he and his family never think of returning. “We are very happy as here we live in peace and earn money for our survival. In Afghanistan, people are faced with an extremely hard economic situation. My two sons and a daughter study here in a local school,” says Shah, 49.
“We arrived in Peshawar in early 1992 when our home was bombed by unknown people. My parents and two brothers died,” he adds.
An awareness session with Afghan women in Akora Khattak refugee camp, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 16 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
Shah and his family live in Baghlan Camp in Peshawar, one of 3,500 refugee families in the camp (though UNHCR now calls camps ‘refugee villages’). There are 54 refugee camps across Pakistan — 43 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province — housing 32 per cent of refugees. More than two-thirds of refugees live in urban areas, where they are legally permitted to work, according to UNHCR.
Most Afghans interviewed by IPS in the market, said they feel that Pakistan is now home. Ninety percent of merchants in the sprawling market are Afghan businessmen, who run clothing, fish, meat and fruit and vegetable shops. “Refugees bazar is bustling with Afghan women and men buying all sorts of stuff,” says fruit seller Ghafoor Shah. “This market is no different from any market in Afghanistan, where women clad in burkas can be seen shopping,” he adds.
Sultana, 51, says they visit the bazaar frequently to do bulk shopping for the Islamic festival Eidul Fitre, marriage ceremonies and other holidays. “We can find all type of articles we need in accordance with Afghan traditions. Us women can talk to Afghan shopkeepers and tailors easily in our own languages compared to Pakistanis, with whom conversation is difficult.”
UNHCR spokesman for Pakistan Qaisar Khan Afridi told IPS that the arrival of new refugees after the Taliban took charge in Kabul has created major issues.
“Over, 250,000 Afghans have reached here in the last 18 months — that’s just the registered refugees. The UN refugee agency is in talks with the host government to seek a solution to the problem of these people who aren’t registered in Pakistan yet,” he says adding, “Pakistan isn’t accepting new refugees,” he adds.
The UNHCR’s voluntary repatriation programme for refugees to Afghanistan has come to almost a complete halt. Only 185 families have returned since January this year, with each getting US$250 as assistance. About 4.4 million refugees have been repatriated since 2002.
Muhammad Hashim, a reporter for Shamshad TV channel in Jalalabad, told IPS that the Taliban aren’t allowing journalists to work freely and suspect anyone who was employed during the former government’s tenure. “I came with my wife and two daughters to Pakistan using back routes and now we’re trying to seek asylum in the US or any European country. Going back is out of the question,” he told IPS, awaiting registration outside UNHCR’s office in Peshawar.
Hashim, 41, says he survived a murder attempt a day before his departure for Pakistan and left so quickly that his belongings remain in Afghanistan.
Women journalists are sitting at home, he adds. Fearing prosecution by Taliban, hundreds of people who worked in the police or in offices under the former Afghan government have also rushed to Pakistan, he says. “Violence and lack of jobs, education and health facilities are haunting the people.”
Muhammad Abbas Khan, Commissioner for Afghan Refugees Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, speaks at a function marking visits of senior UNHCR officials to Padhana refugee camp, Haripur district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 17 June 2022. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
Schoolteacher Mushtari Begum, 39, is among the fresh refugees. “I did a masters in computer science from Kabul University and used to teach in a private girls school for eight years. Now, the women’s schools have been shut down and teachers and students are sitting in their homes,” says Begum, a mother of two. “We live with relatives in Peshawar temporarily and have run of money,” she added.
On 12 June the Pakistan government approved a policy under which transit visas will be issued to Afghan asylum seekers to enable them to travel to any country of their choice. At the same time, the federal cabinet said that Pakistan has always welcomed refugees and would continue to host them in their trying times.
Gul Rahim, who drives a taxi in Nowshera district near Peshawar, says he arrived here in 2002 and has been lucky to educate his two sons. “Pakistan has proved a blessing for me. In Afghanistan I wouldn’t have been able to raise my sons, who are now teaching at a refugee school and helping me financially.”
Afghan students take classes at the Padhana refugees camp, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan 15 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
Fazal Ahmed, a local officer at the Afghan commissionerate in Peshawar, which oversees all refugee camps in the province, says they hold awareness sessions for refugees from time to time, on issues like violence and gender, health and education. “In over 30 refugee camps we also arrange skill development programmes, especially to enable women to earn their livelihoods.
“Sports activities are part of our programme, which we organize in collaboration with the UNHCR,” he says. Afghan students have also been admitted in Pakistani schools, universities and medical colleges, he adds.
However, all is not well. Many refugees complain of being harassed by police, a charge vehemently denied by authorities.
“We arrived here in February 2022 because of fear of reprisals by the Taliban. We have no documents because Pakistan isn’t registering new refugees and police often arrest us and release us only when we pay bribes,” says Usman Ali, who worked as a police constable in the former government in Kabul. Ali, 24, said his elder brother, a former army soldier, was killed by the Taliban in December 2021.
“To save my life, I rushed to Pakistan’s border in a passenger bus and ended up in Peshawar,” he adds.
Local government official Jehanzeb Khan tells IPS that Afghans are treated as guests. “There are isolated cases where Afghans are mistreated by local people but we take action when complaints are filed,” he says.
On Nasir Bagh Road, where Ali sells cosmetics goods from a hand cart, Police Officer Ahmad Nawaz told IPS that they arrest only those Afghans who are involved in crimes and are friendly towards innocent ones. “The Afghans commit robberies and even murders and go back to Afghanistan. We don’t harass Afghans (living here) because they are in trouble,” Nawaz adds.
Two young victims of human trafficking, who were rescued from the Dzaleka Refugee Camp, are receiving support at a shelter in Malawi. Credit: UNODC
by Baher Kamal (madrid)
Inter Press Service
MADRID, Jun 17 (IPS) – In addition to slave selling and buying deals in public squares, as reported time ago in ‘liberated’ Libya, a widespread exploitation of men, women, and children has been carried out for years at refugee camps worldwide.
One of them is a Malawi refugee camp, where such inhumane practice has been reported by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Malawian Police Service.
“I even witnessed a kind of Sunday market, where people come to buy children who were then exploited in situations of forced labour and prostitution,” on 11 June said UNODC’s Maxwell Matewere.
The Dzaleka Refugee Camp, the largest in Malawi, was established in 1994 and is home to more than 50,000 refugees and asylum seekers from five different countries. It was originally designed to accommodate 10,000 people.
Most of the 90 victims so far rescued are men from Ethiopia, aged between 18 and 30, while there are also girls and women too, aged between 12 and 24 from Ethiopia, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
A trafficking processing hub
The UNODC report also explains that women and girls are exploited sexually inside the Dzaleka refugee camp, or transported for the purpose of sexual exploitation to other countries in Southern Africa, while male refugees are being subjected to forced labour inside the camp or on farms in Malawi and other countries in the region.
The camp is also being used as a hub for the processing of victims of human trafficking. Traffickers recruit victims in their home country under false pretences, arrange for them to cross the border into Malawi and enter the camp.
Everywhere
Other refugee camps, like the Rohingya ones in Myanmar, which host up to one million humans, are also being under scrutiny.
Add to this millions more of humans falling easy prey to traffickers and smugglers, victims of wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, not to mention around six million Palestinian refugees.
A whole continent on the move
Ever greater numbers of vulnerable people are risking their lives on dangerous migration routes in Latin America, forced to move by the global food security crisis spiralling inflation, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said ahead of 2022 World Refugee Day.
“We are having countries like Haiti with 26% food inflation and we have other countries that really are off the charts even with food inflation,” said Lola Castro, WFP Regional Director in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
The dramatic deterioration in people’s daily lives has given them little option but to leave their communities and head north, even if it means risking their lives, she explained.
“All of you are watching caravans, caravans of migrants moving, and before we used to talk about migration happening from the north of Central America, but now, unfortunately, we talk about migration being hemispheric. We have the whole continent on the move.”
The Darien Gap
One of the clearest signs of people’s desperation is the fact that they are willing to risk their lives crossing the Darien Gap, a particularly arduous and dangerous forest route in Central America that allows access from the south of the continent to the north.
“In 2020, 5,000 people passed by the Darien Gap, migrating from South America into Central America, and you know what, in 2021, 151,000 people passed, and this is 10 days walking through a forest, 10 days through rivers, crossing mountains and people die because this one of most dangerous jungles in the world.”
For these migrants the reason why they are on the move is simple, the WFP official explained: “They are leaving communities where they have lost everything to climate crisis, they have no food security, they have no ability to feed their people and their families.”
UN data indicates that of the 69 economies now experiencing food, energy and financial shocks, 19 are in the Latin America and the Caribbean region.
Highest ever number of displaced children
Conflict, violence and other crises left a record 36.5 million children displaced from their homes at the end of 2021, UNICEFestimates – the highest number recorded since the Second World War.
This figure, which was reported by UNICEF on 17 June, includes 13.7 million refugee and asylum-seeking children and nearly 22.8 million children who are internally displaced due to conflict and violence.
These figures do not include children displaced by climate and environmental shocks or disasters, nor those newly displaced in 2022, including by the war in Ukraine.
20 people on the run… every minute
Every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror, according to UNHCR.
But while the world’s specialised bodies have been making legal distinctions between migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless people, retruerness, etcetera, the fact is that all of them are victims of stargeering inhuman suffering.
100 million… for now
At the end of 2021, the total number of people worldwide who were forced to flee their homes due to conflicts, violence, fear of persecution and human rights violations was 89.3 million, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported ahead of this year’s World Refugee Day annual marked 20 June.
Armed conflicts in 23 countries
If ongoing conflicts remain unresolved and the risks of new ones erupting are not reined in, one aspect that will define the twenty-first century will be the “continuously growing numbers of people forced to flee and the increasingly dire options available to them.”
Regarding the conflict-driven wave of forced displacement, UNHCR citing World Bank data, reports that in all, 23 countries with a combined population of 850 million faced “medium or high-intensity conflicts.”
Poor countries host 4 in 5 refugees
Data from the UNHCR report underscored the crucial role played by the world’s developing nations in sheltering displaced people, with low and middle-income nations hosting more than four in five of the world’s refugees.
With 3.8 million refugees within its borders, Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees, followed by Colombia, with 1.8 million (including Venezuelan nationals), Uganda and Pakistan (1.5 million each) and Germany (1.3 million).
Relative to their national populations, the Caribbean island of Aruba hosted the largest number of Venezuelans displaced abroad (one in six), while Lebanon hosted the largest number of refugees (one in eight), followed by Curaçao (one in 10), Jordan (one in 14) and Turkey (one in 23).
Such horrifying practice was intensively widespread more than four centuries ago, mostly by European powers, who captured, chained and shipped millions of Africans to their descents’ country: the United States of America, as well to their colonies in Latin America and the Carribeans.
Today “we honour the memory of the millions of people of African descent who suffered under the brutal system of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade”.
This trade created and sustained a global system of exploitation that existed for more than 400 years, devastating families, communities and economies, the UN chief stated.
We remember with humility the resilience of those who endured the atrocities committed by slave traders and owners, condoned by slavery’s beneficiaries, added Guterres.
“The transatlantic slave trade ended more than two centuries ago, but the ideas of white supremacy that underpinned it remain alive.”
PORTLAND, USA, Jun 09 (IPS) – A world with open borders, as some strongly advocate while others insist on maintaining controlled borders, is an interesting exercise to consider given its potential consequences for nations, the planet’s 8 billion human inhabitants, climate change, and the environment.
Based on international surveys of 152 countries taken several years ago before the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 15 percent of the world’s adults said that they would like to migrate permanently to another country if they could. Based on that percentage for adults plus their family members, the estimated number of people who want to migrate in 2022 is likely to be no less than 1.5 billion.
The figure of 1.5 billion wanting to migrate is more than 5 times the estimated number of immigrants in the world in 2020, or about 281 million. The figure of potential immigrants is also approximately 500 times the annual flow of immigrants globally.
The two regions with the highest proportions wanting to migrate to another country if they had the chance are sub-Saharan Africa at 33 percent and Latin America and the Caribbean at 27 percent. In addition, in 13 countries at least half of their populations would like to migrate to another country.
The top three countries with the proportion of their adult populations wanting to migrate are Sierra Leone at 71 percent, Liberia at 66 percent, and Haiti at 63 percent. They are followed by Albania at 60 percent, El Salvador at 52 percent, the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 50 percent.
Seven destination countries attract half of those wanting to migrate to another country. The top destination country at 21 percent of those wanting to migrate is the United States. Substantially lower, Canada and Germany are next at 6 percent, followed by France and Australia at 5 percent, the United Kingdom at 4 percent, and Saudi Arabia at 3 percent.
Among those seven destination countries, the numbers wanting to migrate are greater than the current populations of five of them. For example, the number of people wanting to migrate to Canada is 90 million versus its current population of 38 million. Similarly, the number wanting to migrate to Germany is 94 million versus its current population of 84 million. In the remaining two countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, the numbers wanting to migrate are nearly the same size as their current populations (Figure 1).
Source: United Nations and Gallup.
In addition to its impact on the size of populations, open borders would alter the ethnic, religious, and linguistic composition of populations, leading to increased cultural diversity. Past and present international migration flows have demonstrated alterations in the cultural composition of populations.
In the United States, for example, since 1965 when the Immigration and National Act on country of origin was passed, the proportion Hispanic increased nearly five-fold, from 4 percent to 19 percent in 2020, and the proportion non-Hispanic white declined from 84 percent to 58 percent. Similarly in Germany, the proportion Muslim since 1965 has increased five-fold, from less than 1 percent to 5 percent of the population in 2020.
Various reasons have been offered both in support and in opposition to an open borders world. For example, those opposed believe open borders would increase security threats, damage domestic economies, benefit big business and elites, increase societal costs, encourage brain drain, facilitate illegal trade, reduce labor wages, undermine cultural integrity, and create integration problems (Table 1).
Source: Author’s compilation.
In contrast, those in support believe open borders would provide a basic human right, reduce poverty, increase GDP growth, reduce border control costs, increase the labor supply, provide talented workers, promote travel, reduce time and costs of travel, raise a country’s tax base, promote cultural diversity, and contribute to global interdependence.
Open borders would certainly impact the cultural composition of populations. Even without open borders, the current changes in the cultural composition of populations being brought about by international migration have not only raised public concerns but have also contributed to the growing influence of nativist and far-right political parties.
The nativist parties are typically opposed to immigration, seeing it as a threat to their national cultural integrity. In contrast, those supportive of immigration welcome the arrival of people with differing backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures. They view immigration it as a natural, ongoing human phenomenon that enriches societies.
Open borders would also have consequences on climate change and the environment. Large numbers of people would be migrating to countries with high levels of greenhouse gas emissions per capita. For example, while the world average of tons of CO2 equivalent per person is about 6, the level in the United States is about three times as large at 19.
Similarly, open borders would impact the environment. The migration to the high consumption destination countries would lead to increased biodiversity loss, pollution, and congestion.
An open borders world is not likely to happen any time soon. However, recent large-scale immigration flows, both legal and illegal, are substantially impacting government programs, domestic politics, international relations, and public opinion as well as the size and composition of the populations.
In virtually every region, governments appear to be at a loss on how best to address international migration, especially the waves of illegal migration arriving daily at international borders and the many already residing unlawfully within their countries. International conventions, agreements, and compacts concerning international migration are largely viewed as being outdated, unrealistic, and ineffective in dealing with today’s international migration issues.
The supply of men, women, and children in poor developing countries wanting to migrate greatly exceeds the demand for those migrants in wealthy developed countries by a factor of about five hundred.
The result is the Great Migration Clash, i.e., a worldwide struggle between those who “want out” of their countries and those who want others to “keep out” of their countries.
Given the enormous difference in supply and demand, the Migration Clash is unlikely to be resolved by simply asking destination countries to raise their immigration levels. To resolve the Migration Clash will require considerably improving the social, economic, political, and environmental conditions of the populations in the migrant sending countries.
Achieving those desirable development goals any time soon, however, appears as unlikely as establishing an open borders world. Therefore, countries will continue dealing the best they can with the consequences of controlled borders and the Great Migration Clash.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 08 (IPS) – It has been over 100 days since Russia first invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, turning the country into a slaughterhouse. The United Nations (UN) in this report says that, as of 1 June, 2022, more than 6.9 million refugees have left Ukraine and 2.1 million have returned, while eight million people are displaced inside Ukraine itself. War in Ukraine has caused the fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II.
In a statement, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the conflict which began in February has since then taken thousands of lives, caused untold destruction, displaced millions of people, resulted in unacceptable violation of human rights and is inflaming a three-dimensional global – food, energy and finance – that is pummeling the most vulnerable people, countries and economies.
Maria Dmytriyeva
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are choosing to stay and fight back are demonstrating unity and resilience and say they are ready for the resistance. Maria Dmytriyeva, a long-time women’s rights activist and national gender expert with Democracy Development Center, an NGO based out of Ukraine is one amongst them who chose to stay back, has been working on the ground aiding civilians since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
In an interview given to IPS News Dmytriyeva says that areas that were affected directly by the hostilities that have been liberated by the Ukrainian army are now rapidly rebuilding. “Local people and visiting builders are cleaning up the street, debris, mines and restoring infrastructure, where there are no Russians, life goes on.”
“We do have major problems with fuel as Russians deliberately destroyed our petroleum hosting areas, so transportation is a problem. We don’t have food scarcity; the problem is how to deliver it into areas controlled by Russians or heavily bombarded by Russians,” Dmytriyeva said.
Human rights organizations have been watching the impact of the war in Ukraine on women and children. The Rapid Gender Analysis, put together by UN Women and CARE International says that 90% of those fleeing Ukraine and 60% of those displaced are women – both which comes with increased safety risks, gender-based violence, poor hygiene, lack of basic supplies and safety concerns in shelters or across borders.
“I have visited three border checkpoints, in Romania, Moldova and Slovakia, we don’t enough information about what to do once anyone crosses the borders – how to manage your passport, how to find the right people, which shelter to go to and how to stay safe,” says Ella Lamakh, a social policy expert and Head of Democracy Development Center in Ukraine who too stayed back in Ukraine to help women and children impacted by the war.
Ella Lamakh
“There are a lot of women and children crossing these borders, and when I asked them where they are going, their reply is – ‘oh we are just going across the border, we will ask some volunteer, or we will figure it out’. While I am thankful for all the help these women are getting, there are a lot of posters on the walls across the border or at these checkpoints, but nobody has the time or mind to stop and read any of them. What would be useful for these women is if they are given information, handed over to them in the form of posters or booklets,” Lamakh says.
As of 3 June, the Human Rights Monitoring Team of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had received reports of 124 alleged acts of conflict-related sexual violence across Ukraine.
“Allegations of sexual violence by Russian troops in Ukraine are mounting. A national hotline on domestic violence, human trafficking and gender-based discrimination has been set up, and has received multiple shocking reports ranging from gang rape, to coercion, where loved ones are forced to watch an act of sexual violence committed against a partner of a child” stated this report.
The United Nations has warned that the war in Ukraine has also helped stoke a global food crisis, and “what could follow would be malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years, urging Russia to release Ukrainian grain exports.”
Before the war began in February, Ukraine exported 4.5m tonnes of agricultural produce per month through its ports – 12% of the planet’s wheat, 15% of its corn and half of its sunflower oil. As Russian warships cut off the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and others, the supply has been gravely impacted.
More than a month into Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian military fared better than expected, where Russia has numerical superiority with 900,000 active personnel in its armed forces, and 2 million in reserve, Ukraine has 196,000 and 900,000 reservists, stated this report. Ukraine managed to bring the asymmetric power of pervasive inexpensive commercial technology, especially citizen-empowering social networks and crowdsourcing. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy through his various appeals managed to tap into its western allies demanding weapons and sanctions to fight back.
Several countries have reached out to help Ukraine by sending military aid to Kyiv. The United States will be sending Ukraine advanced rocket systems and munitions as part of a new $700 million package of military equipment, “promised only after direct assurance by Ukraine’s leader that they would not use it against targets within Russian territory.”
Britain is to supply long-range rocket artillery to Ukraine, UK will be sending a handful of tracked M270 multiple launch rocket systems. Spain is to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and Leopard battle tanks in a step up of its military support.
In its latest attempt to punish Russia, the European Union, along with countries such as the UK and the US have introduced a series of measures to weaken key areas of the Russian economy, such as its energy and financial sectors. The EU has imposed a ban on all imports of oil from Russia that are brought in by sea. The US is banning all Russian oil and gas imports, and the UK will phase out Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. Germany has put on hold the final approval of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia. These western sanctions on Russia are like none the world has seen.
Only time will tell what Russia’s overestimation of its own capabilities and underestimation of the capacity of Ukraine to fight back will result in, but history is a proof that ‘wars of aggression’ have not always ended well for aggressor states, and as seen in Ukraine, it’s already united western allies, rallied Ukrainians against common enemy and united them with a sense of purpose and collective sacrifice, keeping them going stronger for the last 100 days. Ukraine is showing the world how to fight back.
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Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.
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