Fleeing Eritrea

Leaving Eritrea without permission is a criminal offense. There has also been a noticeable increase in controls on the Eritrean side of the Sudan-Eritrea border in the last two months. People are being intercepted and sent back. Eritrean soldiers are instructed to shoot at anyone they discover trying to leave the country illegally, a policy that hasn’t prevented thousands from fleeing across the border every month. Eritrea’s stepped up border controls may be partly related to security concerns as it celebrates 25 years of independence, but that they were also about “trying to make themselves look like a good partner” to the EU. While the majority of Eritreans remain in camps in Sudan and Ethiopia, over 70,000 applied for asylum in Europe during 2014 and 2015, according to EuroStat figures.

Authorities in Sudan have launched a crackdown on Eritrean migrants - arresting those living in the capital, Khartoum, and intercepting hundreds travelling north through the country towards Libya, the launching point for smugglers’ boats heading for Europe.

Reports that 900 Eritreans were rounded up in Khartoum on Monday and that a further 400 arrested en route to Libya have been deported to Eritrea, come amid recent revelations in the British and German media that the EU is planning to deepen its cooperation with a number of African countries, including Sudan and Eritrea, to stem migration towards Europe.

A spokesperson with UNHCR’s office in Khartoum confirmed that a number of migrants, including Eritreans, had been intercepted in northern Sudan heading towards the Libyan border. Sudan has a prior record of deporting Eritreans without allowing them access to asylum procedures, a practice that UNHCR has condemned in the past as amounting to refoulement.

The EU has increasingly sought the cooperation of African states to control the flows of migrants headed for its shores by using the promise of aid and trade agreements. Critics argue that such policies have contributed to states viewing migrants as bargaining chips to be leveraged for maximum political capital with disastrous results for their safety and human rights. Der Spiegel and the New Statesman reported on a leaked plan to increase cooperation with African countries of origin and transit for migrants. The articles alleged that the EU plans to use funding from the recently launched Emergency Trust Fund for Africa to send equipment and vehicles to help Sudan police its border with Eritrea and to assist with the construction of two closed reception centres in Gadaref and Kassala. Eritrea would be given assistance to develop or implement human trafficking regulations. Europe’s engagement with Sudan and Eritrea, and other countries along the Horn of Africa to Europe migration route, dates back to the Khartoum Process, launched in November 2014. The Khartoum process risks legitimizing the governments of Sudan and Eritrea by treating them as partners in tackling irregular migration, when in fact those countries’ own policies are a major factor in driving migration and fuelling migrant smuggling and trafficking. Sudanese officials have repeatedly been accused of colluding with or turning a blind eye to traffickers who kidnap Eritrean refugees and hold them for ransom.

http://www.irinnews.org/news/2016/05/25/sudan-and-eritrea-crackdown-migrants-amid-reports-eu-incentives

The Backway

Africa has never seen so many young men voluntarily heading for Europe. The number of migrants crossing by sea to Italy, a top entry point, nearly quadrupled from 2013 to 2014, reaching about 170,100. Sub-Saharan Africans made up a growing percentage of the total, with around 64,600 arriving last year. This year, the figure is expected to be even higher. Gambia, one of Africa’s smallest nations, is a big contributor to that flow. “The Western Route,” experts call the web of migrant trails from Gambia, Senegal and Mali that now lead to North Africa. But Gambians have a different name for the dangerous path to Europe: The Backway.

A growing number of Gambians are literate, but with “little chance at employment that matches their skills, just like China by the 1960s and India by the 1970s,” said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration. “So they do the rational thing and they leave.”

Twenty percent of Gambia’s gross domestic product now comes from remittances, according to the World Bank, one of the highest percentages in Africa. The first major wave of Gambians left villages in the 1990s, mostly for Spain. By 2010, there were 65,000 Gambians abroad, around 4 percent of the population.

Longtime dictator, President Yahya Jammeh, has preached a life of subsistence. He has created a bizarre mythology around himself as a man who could cure AIDS and threatened to personally slit the throats of gay men. He has brushed off the thousands of young men fleeing his country as failures and bad Muslims. “The only people who can make any money in The Gambia are those very close to the president. If not, you’re making $100 a month, if that,” said C. Omar Kebbeh, an economist and expert in Gambian migration, now at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The Ethiopian Exodus

Almost two-thirds of Ethiopians are Christians, the majority of those Orthodox Copts - who have been in the Horn of Africa nation since the first century AD.  In the widely-reported incident in Libya, IS militants executed 28 Ethiopian migrants of Christian who had planned to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of work in Europe. 16 Ethiopian migrants in one group on a beach were beheaded and shot 12 in the head in another group in a desert area. Eyasu Yikunoamilak and Balcha Belete, residents of the impoverished Cherkos neighbourhood in Addis Ababa, were among the victims, it was learnt, along with three other victims from Cherkos.

"Pervasive repression and denial of fundamental freedoms has led to frustration, alienation and disillusionment among most Ethiopian youth" - Yared Hailemariam, former senior researcher for the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (now Human Rights Council). These and other issues have prompted the exodus of Ethiopian migrants to Europe, according to several observers. "The idea that the majority of Ethiopian migrants relocate due to economic reasons appears flawed," contends Tom Rhodes, East Africa Representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in an email interview with IPS. Rhodes also maintained that the violation of fundamental freedoms is closely tied with poverty and economic inequality. The main opposition parties say that the government has failed to create job opportunities, making migration inevitable. The regime, they charge, favours members of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front and creates economic inequality. "The regime allocates state resources and job opportunities to members of the ruling party who are organised in small-scale and micro enterprises," noted Felix Horne, East Africa researcher with Human Rights Watch. The CPJ representative agreed. "Ethiopian government authorities tend to reward their political supporters and ethnic relations with lucrative political and business positions"

Dubbed an "African tiger", Ethiopia is one of Africa's most populous nations with 94 million people (Nigeria has 173.6 million). It has been celebrated for its modest economic growth over the last years. But the average unemployment rate (the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force) was stuck at 20.26 percent from 1999 to 2014. In its 2015 report, the World Bank shared this discouraging view. Some 37 million Ethiopians - one-third of the country's population - are still "either poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty", the World Bank said, adding that the "very poorest in Ethiopia have become even poorer" over the last decade or so. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has estimated that about 29 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line. This explains Ethiopia's rank at 174 out of 187 countries on the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index. The Oakland Institute, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation that spotlights land grabs, was recently denounced by Ethiopian officials for its latest report 'We Say the Land is Not Yours'. The institute maintained that the government's development endeavours are "destroying the lives, culture, traditions, and livelihoods" of many indigenous and pastoralist populations, further warning that the strategy was "unsustainable and creating a fertile breeding ground for conflict."

More than half of Ethiopia's farmers are cultivating plots so small as to barely provide sustenance. These one hectare or less plots are further affected by drought, an ineffective and inefficient agricultural marketing system and underdeveloped production technologies, says FAO. Several studies indicate that this phenomenon has induced massive rural-urban migration. 

According to Yared Hailemariam, state ownership of land has contributed to poverty and inequality. "People don't have full rights over their properties so that they lack the motivation to invest," he stressed. The ruling regime insists that land will remain in the hands of the state, and selling and buying land is prohibited in Ethiopia. Yared also pointed out that the ruling party owns several huge businesses which has created unfair competition in the economy. "The party's huge conglomerates have weakened other public and private businesses" he told IPS. "Only the ruling party's political elites and their business cronies are benefitting at the expense of the majority of the people."

The tragic news of the massacre in Libya came amid news of xenophobic attacks against Ethiopian migrants in South Africa last week including looting and burning of properties. Unknown numbers of Ethiopian economic migrants are also trapped in the Yemeni conflict, according to state media.

Migration: The Problem Is Capitalism

Anthropologist and author of "Illegality, Inc." Ruben Andersson of the London School of Economics warns that European Union initiatives to collaborate with African states may fuel irregular migration rather than stem it.
 
In 2010, on the eve of the Arab spring, the time had come for the big yearly gathering at Europe’s borders as police, Navy officers and border guards congregated in a swish hotel in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Eighty-nine security chiefs from 25 countries mingled in the fifth Euro-African policing conference on irregular migration. In the breaks, African marines sipped tea with Spanish civil guards on the hotel terrace while Algerian and Greek officers snapped pictures of each other as souvenirs. As journalists and border guards streamed back into the halls, the director of Spain’s security forces assured his audience that the fight against the “scourge” of irregular migration was proceeding apace thanks to “the collaboration between all the institutions represented here”. His speech was strident; the battle for Europe’s borders was being won.

Memories of the triumphalism of 2010 came back to me amid the past months’ drip-drip of news on Europe’s scramble to deal with the latest “migration crisis” in the Med. Instead of investing in more rescues and establishing legal routes into Europe, politicians are now calling for more “collaboration” with African states to halt flows at source or in transit. Refugee reception centres on African soil, naval patrols by North African states and political deals to curtail human smuggling are some of the options on the table as the Union builds towards the May launch of its “agenda on migration”. Yet there is one fundamental problem with these varied bids for more African cooperation: they have been tried numerous times already. Worse, they have repeatedly failed, despite the bright and shiny view from migration policing HQ during those distant days of springtime 2010. 

Regardless of which of the rumoured African cooperation initiatives come to fruition – and going by earlier failures, few will – they all share some common traits. The idea is to outsource tough policing while heaping risks and responsibilities onto African countries, all under the guise of a humanitarian concern for the wellbeing of migrants. The experts on such outsourcing have long been the Spaniards, hosts of the Canaries border guard bonanza. As one Spanish civil guard told me in those heady days of 2010, explaining the logic behind patrols along West African coasts: “You have to prevent them leaving, you can’t wait for them to arrive… That way you save many lives.” 
“Collaborations” of the kind touted in Las Palmas have so far simply exported the idea of migration as a security problem to Europe’s neighbouring states, from Senegal in the west to Turkey in the east. This export has come with a hefty pile of gifts for those willing to play their part in the “fight against irregular migration” from policing equipment and top-up pay to repurposed development aid and diplomatic concessions.

As European politicians sign secretive deals with African governments, a border business has grown in Europe’s backyards – and the perverse incentives generated by this business have in turn helped contribute to precisely the type of crisis we now see in the Med. 
Well aware of Europe’s anxieties over the statistically small flows of sub-Saharan migrants and refugees into the Union, North African states in particular have in the past decade squeezed substantial political capital out of deepening border cooperation. Morocco has perfected the art of using its newfound status as “transit state” to extract concessions in fields as varied as fishing rights, aid, acquiescence over occupied Western Sahara and even some selective mobility for its own citizens. In Libya, long an important destination for African workers, Gaddafi used migrants as a bargaining chip even as NATO bombs started to fall. That legacy has been continued by militias and security forces, which have increasingly treated African migrants as fair game for extortions, beatings and arbitrary detentions. Further south, in similarly migration-dependent Mauritania, cooperation with Spain has brought arbitrary raids, detentions and deportations. And in Algeria, migrants have been serially expelled and robbed at gunpoint: deportees I met in Mali and Morocco alike told me how Algerian soldiers had stolen their cash and mobiles, leaving only their SIM cards as they were bundled into cattle carriages rumbling through the Sahara. 

The rare “success stories” – especially Spanish operations along West African coasts – come not just at the cost of migrants’ rights, but also simply displace routes into more dangerous areas. Meanwhile, migrants arriving in North Africa are becoming a valuable commodity not just to smugglers preying on a captive client base, but also to police and politicians. All this makes life increasingly impossible for black foreigners, who desperately start scrambling for an exit. It is a vicious cycle that has to be broken. 

Instead of fuelling this trade in human misery, European politicians should be doing the opposite – minimising rather than inflating gains from the border business. This would mean encouraging the normalisation of mobility, for instance via more legal pathways into Europe and via the decriminalisation of irregular migration in North Africa. It would mean offering more substantial support to the world’s top refugee-hosting nations – countries such as Turkey and Lebanon – as well as grappling seriously with the chaos in Libya and Syria. And it would mean reframing migration not as a security problem in need of more policing cooperation but as an inevitable socio-economic force that can yield substantial benefits to Europe as well as its neighbours.

Plenty of political courage is needed to dismantle the policies and collaborations that have so far contributed to making the migration crisis a self-fulfilling prophecy. Optimists may take heart that there seems to be some political will for such a change among “partner” states, not least Morocco. Yet the border amnesia in European political circles – not to mention the onward march of the far right – means there is sadly little chance of a rethink as leaders gear up to meet this May on the EU migration agenda. Rather, expect more warm words on deepening policing collaboration with African states, in a faint echo of the Spanish security chief’s strident assurances during those seemingly distant days on Las Palmas.

from here

Migration by humans has been a fact of life throughout their evolution. At this stage of humanity we should be informed enough to look at the cause of this particular era's happenings - both the reasons for such numbers of would-be migrants and the attempts to stop them by the destination countries. Conventional politics represents the capitalist system. 'Political courage', if that means having the will to 'dismantle the policies and collaborations' currently being employed, is unlikely to show itself in any meaningful way to those individuals desperate to move abroad. Each individual nation is struggling with the effects of the failures of capitalism for large percentages of their population and by necessity spend time and energy spinning information to their citizens feeding them fuel to keep the various factions divided and antagonistic towards the perceived economic invaders.
World socialism is a vision of the 'one world' principle - we have one world and that is to be shared between us all. A world of common ownership with free movement for all. The underlying problem to be eliminated is not migration but capitalism.

Understanding Migration

A very much to-the-point article on migration by Mike Mavura

The “fear” of being swamped by foreigners is easy to mobilise on the social or political agenda as a social and security issue. Often, this fear fuels public perceptions in host countries that migrants increase employment competition, challenge religious, cultural or ethnic homogeneity, increase crime or threaten national security. This may result in xenophobic attacks, as seen by the unfortunate situation playing out in Soweto. Are these fears justified? If all the migrants in Soweto were to vacate, will the socio-economic problems of that community’s problems depart with them? Are these migrants not an easy target and temporary catharsis for a community frustrated and disenchanted with lack of state delivery and opportunities?

We still come across figures and estimates which state that for example the number of Zimbabweans living in South Africa is between a one million and four million. Zimbabwe has a population of about 14.15 million. At the high end of these estimates, it means at least a third of Zimbabweans live in South Africa, a dubious claim. According to Chiumia 2013, a report published on the website of SW Radio Africa, it stated that there are between two and three million Zimbabweans living and working in South Africa. Interviews conducted by the Inter Press Service news agency stated that the number of Zimbabwean nationals crossing the border have almost doubled since elections in Zimbabwe. What is often missed by these studies is that “crossing the border” is not a single event but a continuous process. By far, the vast number of people who cross the border into South Africa are also those who cross it back to Zimbabwe and other regional countries within days, weeks and at most a few months. Contemporary cross-border migration within southern Africa, better understood as transnationalism is not premised on permanent settlement in the receiving country but is highly circular comprising of migrants having a foothold in both sending and receiving countries and constantly shuttling between the two.

It takes its cue from historical intensive intra-regional migration dating back to the mid-nineteenth century when new industries were introduced that generated sustained interdependence between labour-supplying and labour-receiving countries in the region. The story of social transformations in the region, therefore, is fundamentally the story of migration; it is the story of human movements that continue to pervade the entire region unhindered by colonial boundaries. No wonder southern Africa has been described as a region on the move. Most cross-border practices by Zimbabweans have occurred in Botswana and South Africa and by Zambians and Mozambicans in Zimbabwe and by Malawians in Zambia and Tanzania. Despite the Southern African Development Community’s rhetoric of free movement in southern Africa, cross-border migrants continue to highlight the tension between the tendency of states to define space as “territory’-accentuating control, order, and security and the tendency of individuals to associate space with “soil”-emphasising free movement, shelter, and subsistence. To migrants, southern African borders are not barriers but windows of opportunities.

These opportunities require migrants to live their lives across various locations. Hence transnationalism is composed of a growing number of persons who live dual lives, sometimes speaking two languages and making a living through continuous regular contact across national borders. Leading transnational, multi-sited lives means that exchanges and interactions across borders are a regular and sustained part of migrants’ realities and activities. This means South Africa is but one of many regular destinations in the transnational migrant portfolios, a regular pit-stop in a nomadic life that might include Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, Dubai and China in the destinations portfolio. These migrants make a living by exploiting the differentials in supply and demand of merchandise, products, seasonal labour among other goods and services across regional and international borders.

Thus migrant-owned spaza shops are not only in Soweto but scattered throughout the region together with flea markets, various import and export enterprises, buying and re-selling businesses among other ventures that feed into the regional informal trade and social network. Transnationalism speaks to a “condition of being”, a condition of constantly shuttling to and from sending and receiving nodes. As such, this movement is so encompassing as to virtually erase the distinction between “here” (home) and “there” (host state). Consequently, transmigrants cannot be neatly placed, they are neither for example, in Zimbabwe nor in South Africa, they are a moving target. This makes home and host society a single arena of social action, a third space between and across state borders. Such “third spaces” or migrant “imagined’ communities represent a theatre where kinship, social networks, cultural trends, and visions of individual and familial futures are enacted. A semi-autonomous space, isolated from the national order of things and populated by increasingly “sovereignty free” individuals whose only link back to the state is a passport.

What does this mean for identity in southern Africa? For traditional citizenship based on continuous residence in a given territory, a shared collective identity and participation in and subjection to a common jurisdiction? What does this mean for migrant identities traditionally associated with settlement in host states? What does this mean for outdated policies and approaches obsessed with quantifying migrants in host countries and inflaming fears of “migrant tsunamis”? We ought to re-think our approaches to migration and realise that permanent settlement and inclusion in host societies are no longer the outcomes of much contemporary migration within the region. Current conditions of flexible accumulation and globalisation economic practices militate against a facile incorporation into a national imaginary. Transnational migrants see southern Africa as a single arena of social action rather than territory divided by boundaries into states. We should realise that embeddedness in cross-border exchange is now a normal part of people’s contemporary social statuses. Transnational migrants are thus front-runners and actors in the regionalisation project with southern African states and state policies lagging behind, hamstrung by narrow, parochial and inward-looking interests. Transnational migrants in southern Africa expose the fiction of state sovereignty daily as goods, people, capital and resources flow freely and continually throughout the region creating flourishing informal sectors that ignore borders and evade taxes. This alludes to the waning of state and society convergence. Migrant third spaces offer an invitation to rethink the concepts, foundations and boundaries of states and identity formation. They represent tentative alternative locations of community, identities, economic, social and political (in)security that exists alongside, across and in competition with states. This makes scenario building for southern Africa’s future outlook an interesting project.

Full article here 

Angola's anti-migrant campaign

During the last few days Angolan security forces have arrested and arbitrarily detained several African nationals who they also subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment in serious violations of migrants’ human rights, according to several human rights organisations

The Angolan authorities have embarked upon a new fight against clandestine immigration that is becoming more like a migrants ‘manhunt’. In the last ten days, 3,000 people have been rounded up in the streets of Luanda. Non-Angolan Africans are violently arrested in the streets, in their homes and at work and taken to the detention centre in Trinita, 30 km from Luanda. Some are forcibly repatriated. They are kept in cruel, inhumane, humiliating, and degrading conditions. They are crammed into tiny cells and deprived of both water and food. Some pregnant women (two of whom are from Mali and Guinea) had to give birth in these deplorable conditions. Acts of torture and extortion of money have also been reported.

Immigrants in Angola, especially people from West Africa, have been subject to repeated attacks, stigmatization and violations of their human rights. The arrests may be linked to ethnic and religious discrimination, since the main group targeted is largely composed of Muslims from Guinea, Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. Witnesses reported that mosques were surrounded by the Immigration Services on Friday, 19 December 2014.

Socialist Banner condemns all xenophobic practices and attitudes.

Africa - Migration Dynamics

Below are links to articles in this special issue of Pambazuka News, each in their own way relevant to current discussions in the western world about the 'whys and whos and where froms' of immigrants. Three months ago Pambazuka issued an invitation for articles on the subject. Here are some - in their diversity.
 JS

Africa and its Diaspora in migration dynamics

Tidiane Kasse

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92259

This special issue of Pambazuka News shows that the question of migration is entangled with complex political, economic, legal, social, cultural issues. One cannot address this issue from an African perspective without thinking about the violence and pillage rampant on the continent over the past several centuries 

 

Migration and Africa: On the urgent need to think beyond the nation-state

Marco Zoppi

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92252

European powers imposed the nation-state on Africa through colonialism. But even after African independencies, mainstream discourses and government policies have amplified the idea that sedentariness and the state are the only acceptable mode of modernity. Migration is portrayed as a menace to the societies where the migrants wish to settle

 

Sinking hope

Thousands of Africans drown every year as they sail to Europe in search of jobs

Kebba Dibba

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92258

Europe has transformed itself into a fortress, with anti-immigration legislation a centrepiece of foreign and domestic policy. Stringent visa regimes, among other restrictions, simply disqualify many aspiring migrants, forcing them to take ever more desperate measures.

 

The drivers and outcomes of feminization of migration in Africa

Nedson Pophiwa

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92260

Migration from Africa has historically been a male-dominated phenomenon, but the pattern has changed significantly in recent decades. African women are leaving their countries of birth to create new lives elsewhere. Economic opportunities are primarily available in childcare, domestic and sex work. These trends should be of special interest to those in the policy-making spaces who are concerned about the wellbeing of female migrants.

 

Rumble in the Belgian bungle

Citizenship questions are at the heart of the DRC's Conflict

Carol Jean Gallo

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92257

Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), particularly in the eastern Kivu provinces, can be traced to its convoluted history of migration, citizenship and property rights.

 

Which African diaspora? A slavery descendant's perspective, 500 years later

Marian Douglas-Ungaro

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92255

Would it not be both accurate and fair to acknowledge, and to designate, that there exists more than one ‘African diaspora’?

Dying for a new life

The crossing of the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe to find a hoped-for better life has resulted in many hundreds of drownings. But let us not forget those who die even before they reach that leg of their tortuous journey.

Dozens of people traversing the Sahara desert on their way to Europe are feared to have died of thirst in Niger, officials say. Five bodies have been found, while a further 35 are missing after their vehicle broke down.  They consisted of entire families, including very many children and women. The bodies found are of two women and three girls aged 9-11.

The New Slave Trade

Malawi is to export up to 100,000 of its young people as migrant workers. It involves sending young Malawian men and women aged between 18 and 25 to jobs in factories and on farms in Korea. Opposition MPs in Malawi have called the deal "slave labour".

"We always cry about brain-drain and encourage Malawians in the diaspora to come back home and yet here we are exporting the cream of our labour force abroad. It doesn't make sense at all," Stevyn Kamwendo, for the DPP, told parliament .

Migration - the other side of the story

For centuries, Angola was as ruthlessly exploited by its Portuguese masters. Today the Portugal's economy floundering but for most of the past decade, Angola's diamond-mining and oil-rich economy has grown by 10 per cent a year. With 7,000 Portuguese businesses established there and linguistic links when Angola started looking for a skilled workers from abroad to help build the country they turned to its old coloniser. The Angolan consulate is currently processing Portuguese immigration papers at an average of more than 20,000 a year. between 2008 and 2011 the number of Portuguese in Angola increased from 20,000 to 130,000.

Last December, the Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, suggested to teachers who were "supplementary to our requirements" that they "try Angola or Brazil, where there's a huge demand for primary and secondary school educators. We have a drop in population, and either they can retrain in other areas, or if they want to stay as teachers, look through the entire Portuguese-speaking market."

Spain: The economic crisis is forcing 1,200 young Spaniards to emigrate to Argentina each month, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy claimed last year. Around 30,000 Spaniards moved to Argentina between June 2009 and November 2010. Some 6,400 went to Chile and 6,800 headed for Uruguay.

Italy: The Italian economy has been at a virtual standstill since 2000 and around 600,000, often highly educated young Italians, have gone abroad in the past decade. Most have emigrated to North and South America.

India: India's rapidly growing economy has triggered a reverse migration. About 300,000 Indians employed overseas are expected to return to the country by 2015.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/europes-jobless-flee-for-new-el-dorados-7576277.html

A blind eye

Jimmy Mubenga died as three security guards restrained him with what is believed to be excessive force while being deported to Angola. Last month, a senior journalist at a radio station, accused by the ruling party of trying to incite rebellion, was shot dead in Luanda. In 2004, Mfulumpinga Nlandu Victor, an outspoken politician, was also shot dead in the capital. In 2007, the leader of the main opposition party, Isaías Samakuva, survived an assassination attempt unharmed. There are many lesser known cases of systematic abuse, detentions, torture, deaths, but none of these appear on the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) country profile. Unlike nearby Zimbabwe, Angola does not even feature in the UK's list of countries whose human rights record are of concern.

British business interests, particularly oil interests, are undoubtedly the underlying reason. Angola produces about 1.9m barrels of oil a day. One of the UK's largest companies, BP, has substantial interests there and describes Angola as one of its "six new profit centres". BP's involvement in the country began four decades ago: to date it has invested $8bn. Other British businesses operating in Angola include De La Rue, Lonrho plc, Crown Agents, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Standard Chartered and KPMG. According to Oxfam, British arms brokers were actively selling arms to Angola during the war.

The irony is that many British people take it for granted that our respect for human rights and justice is second to none. Often, when talking about dictatorships in other parts of the world, we assume we have a moral authority that other nations can only envy. The death of Mubenga while in the care of the British justice system suggests otherwise.

Cab-Ride to Capitalism: Servitude by the Majority

Socialist Banner thought it worthwhile to re-post this article from the magazine Socialist Standard .

It only takes a cab ride in a city to see which class has the most power and influence in capitalist society
Everyday taxicab rides may appear to be lacklustre experiences that are quickly forgotten. However, this might not always be the case. Sometimes our views of events may become clouded and we cannot see things for what they really are. However, after taking many cab-rides in an urban city, I began to see things in a different way. On one of my jaunts in a taxicab I decided to investigate what it is that made people come to developed capitalist countries from less developed parts of the world.

In speaking to a cab driver, who left Ethiopia to come to Canada, I found my answer. I asked, “do people tend to be more happy in Western societies than in Ethiopia?” He answered that, “Ethiopia was a poor country.” In his words I could see the influence capitalism now had on his life: he equated how much money one has to how happy they are in life. This is reminiscent of one of the trademark idioms of capitalism that money can buy happiness. This is now disputed even by some who are otherwise supporters of capitalism, but if it were wholly refuted then this could undermine the entire capitalist system. Unfortunately, many people do believe that money can buy happiness in the owning class and force those who do not make as much money into the service industry, which in its very nature seeks to serve the owning class.

Your life is influenced by where you are born

Your life is partly determined by where you are born. For example, if you are born in Ethiopia then your life will be determined by Ethiopian standards and culture. In the United States, Canada or the UK your life is determined by a more developed capitalist system. Someone may come from Ethiopia to experience the “freedoms” countries like these employ, but there is another factor at work here: class. It is easy to show that the system boasts of false promises: Sally wishes to go to university, but Sally’s parents cannot afford to pay for it because in the capitalist system one must pay for everything. Sally’s life path has now been influenced by what class she was born into. Therefore, what the Ethiopian will notice is that “freedoms” have a price and are largely determined by what class one is born into.

Along the same lines, immigrants often receive low paying work in the service industry once they enter the developed capitalist system and they can never afford the education to gain higher paying jobs. As a result they stay in the service industry their entire lives, being some of the most lowly-paid members of the working class of wage and salary earners. It is education and money that allows one to move up in a capitalist society but even if one is to move up the ‘social ladder’, it is only usually to a less badly paid section of the same subservient class.

Finding and maintaining a job is difficult enough for people in poor countries and therefore receiving an education is but a luxury. In fact, the cab driver I spoke to said that he was working to make sure that his daughter would be able to go to university. He has to spend his years driving a car all day long so that his daughter will not have to do the same job and will have a better future. If someone cannot improve their station in life because they have no money to begin with, they also cannot afford to improve their station through higher education. This means that they are left work for the class that owns and controls society. This is because capitalism is not really based on merit, but on how much money one has. This is irrational as merit should never have a price, it should be free and depend on nothing but itself.

The capitalist system is marketed on its promises of equality and freedoms through purchasing power. Prospective immigrants are given rhetoric about how capitalism makes anything possible – if one has money. However, nothing appears possible, let alone free and equal about the owning class being served daily by an exploited working class, who are actually the majority and whose freedom is rationed and limited by their pay packets and salary cheques.

Moreover, how successful you will be in life is largely determined by what class you are born into, and is out of your control. The cab driver from Ethiopia realised that he, or his daughter, would not be able to influence society in a poor country because all of the rich capitalist countries such as those in the G8 are the most influential and have the highest standards of living. However, even though he came to one of these developed capitalist countries, he will almost inevitably remain in the service industry for the rest of his life. This is because capitalism is not based on talent or merit like a truly equal system would be such as socialism where everyone would have an equal opportunity to pursue their true interests in life. In capitalism, your success typically still depends on how rich a family or area you are born into and what kind of a reputation it has. If you are unlucky and are born into the majority, the working class, it is likely that you will remain there to serve the upper class for the duration of your life.

Capitalism Promises Freedoms, But for Who?

It is taught in school that capitalist countries are mosaic countries, small units of various cultures existing within a larger schema or government. This view is marketed so that potential immigrants will not have to leave their customs behind and still be able to reap the so-called rewards of capitalist society. In reality, what exists is a melting pot where these cultures are eventually assimilated. The opposite of a mosaic, melting pot, a term with a negative connotation, is often used to describe societies experiencing large-scale immigration from many different countries that seem to “melt” into the existing society. For example, Muslims are being assimilated into Western culture by way of developed capitalism. Only those who assimilate into the capitalist system are able to experience the "freedoms" it promises, but at often cost to their culture. It follows that people who come to developed capitalist countries work to serve the needs of the majority, who are of a different culture, often by forgoing their own so that they might fit in the prevailing market-driven norms.

Two of the most prominent examples of the melting-pot theory are the African Americans who were enslaved by white people through trade and the Native Americans who were wiped out, enslaved or displaced during European colonization. Though these cultures, mainly the African Americans, regained somewhat of their dignity many years later, they still lost the connection to their homeland, lost their culture and were forced to “melt” into the capitalist system.

The natives of North America are an example of not only assimilation to benefit the capitalist class but of the deception of such a system. The natives did not have money or a use for money until the European settlers arrived. These initiated trade and the natives would work hard to gather furs. They would sell their furs, specifically beaver pelts, which were very expensive items in European society at the time. In return they would receive trinkets such as forks as well detrimental items like firearms and liquor. Further, the economy that was run during colonization was one that the Europeans implemented and operated themselves, i.e. capitalism. Also, when the natives finally became wary of the situation, they lost their land. Treaties for land exchange were deceitfully created in a language foreign to them so that they could not have possibly known that they were signing away their land. They were taken advantage of and most importantly, lost their autonomy and freedom. Additionally, the native clans that do remain in North America are being assimilated, or waiting to be assimilated, into society. One way where this can be seen is through the media impact on younger generations who are lured into Western society with its market-driven imperatives and away from their cultural heritage.

Servitude

It seems almost unbelievable to think that servitude exists today in a society that is supposed to be ‘meritocratic’. This is because it is unnecessary that there should even be a servant class in society at all, even if the modern form of slavery is wage slavery.

There is no doubt that if one were to ask the Ethiopian cab driver if he would drive a cab all day if he didn’t have to, he would say no. The majority of people work unsatisfying and unchallenging jobs in the service industry and this is not necessary. It is socially demeaning and it is servitude, plain and simple. Capitalism has wrought its negative influences on the African Americans and North American natives. These people were exploited and subordinate classes until they melted into the capitalist society causing social alienation and loss of cultural identity. Further, those that work in the service industry today are not far off from these fates. Their lives may be better now that they can purchase “freedom” but it is at a great cost to their dignity as they spend their lives in servitude based on the amount of money they (do not) have instead of what talents they possess. Moreover, it only takes a cab ride in a city to see which class has the most power and influence in a capitalist society and chances are it isn’t the class of the Ethiopian behind the wheel.

JESSICA FORDHAM (Socialist Party of Canada)

Drowning for Labour Fluidity

Socialist Banner has previously reported on the woes of the migrant and has repeatedly stated that workers have no borders. 200 migrants were feared dead off the coast of Libya, after the smugglers' boat which was supposed to take them to Italy capsized.The UN refugee agency estimates that more than 67,000 people undertook the dangerous voyage to Europe in smugglers' boats in 2008. More than 1,700 are known to have died, but that figure could be far higher.

Echoing much of our analysis is the head of the UN refugee agency, Antonio Guterres when he said :-

"I think it's important to recognise that in today's world where as we have seen, money moves so freely, and goods tend to move also more and more freely, there are still tremendous obstacles for people.People need to move because they can no longer live in their countries of origin because of war, because of environmental degradation, because of poverty, there are many reasons that force people to move."

The International Labour Organisation says that despite the current global financial crisis, falling birth rates across western Europe will cause a labour shortage over the next few years. It says Europe should think about making it easier for people from the developing world to come in and work.

"You have a strong demand for labour particularly in industrialised countries," explained Patrick Taran, a migrant labour specialist with the ILO."They need people to fill the low skilled jobs in agriculture and construction, manufacturing, domestic work, in health care, and you have a lot of people, including with skills, who need those jobs and are willing to come for them."

He adds "When there's no job at all at home, when you have a family to feed, you will take risks to make sure that you and your family have food on the table."

As socialists are concerned, it is not a case of chanting “Migrants are welcome here” , which implies we as workers have some right to say who is and isn't welcome in the first place; nor even of saying that the immigration laws should be relaxed. We understand that the thing which makes workers leave behind their communities, and go to a place where their language is not spoken, is the wages system itself. This underlies the need for us to recognise our identical position with regards to the wages system, and work together, as workers across the world, across boundaries, to create a commonly owned planet where all can live in security.

One People ,One World

Socialist Banner has previously directed attention to the anti-migrant tendencies in South Africa and once again we receive yet more reports of the same.

Socialist Banner can only agree with these statements made by a libertarian group in South Africa .

"No, Zimbabweans are not the reason why we have high crime rates and live in poverty! It is the capitalist system that needs starvation and unemployment to keep prices low, and it is the inequality generated by the capitalist system that drives people to crime! It is the ruling class and the government which protect capitalism. We should not attack people suffering from the same system we suffer from but the people who are behind it!...It is time to get rid of some of the myths that are around in South Africa: most criminals in this country actually are South Africans and not Zimbabweans or Congolese or whatever scapegoat you want to find! It is a myth in order to build a South African national identity but it is built on a lie...Other Africans for the first time in their life experience racism in South Africa, and this comes from both white and black South Africans...Xenophobia, meaning the fear of the foreign, is a sign of a society that has forgotten what its real enemy is: capitalism and everyone who supports this system (i.e. the state). It is as disgusting as racism to which it is closely related...The poor and working class people of this whole planet have more in common with each other than any working class does with its ruling class in any one country. To attack immigrants is to fight our own people instead of working together to build a better world.

We should be fighting for a world without artificial national borders between brothers and sisters in which no one is illegal!"

divide and rule

Socialist Banner has pointed out the threat of discrimination in South Africa against in-comers from other parts of the continent and now another news report high-lights the problem .

Human rights organisations in South Africa have condemned a spate of xenophobic attacks that have reportedly left four people dead and hundreds homeless.
"At least a 1,000 people have also been left homeless in the latest attack - we are really concerned," said Vincent Moaga, spokesman for the South African Human Rights Commission .

The United Nations Refugee Agency said it had recorded at least half a dozen attacks against foreign nationals in the past few weeks, including the fatal shooting of two migrants in another township outside Pretoria on 18 March. Following the killing, thousands of people went on a rampage, assaulting foreigners in four other informal settlements, reported local newspapers.

"Most of the attacks seem to stem from social tensions within the communities," said Jack Redden, UNHCR spokesman in South Africa. "Many foreign nationals unable to afford rentals in city centres have begun to relocate to townships - and have become the focus of simmering tensions within townships over lack of service delivery." Nearly 17 million strong labour force remain officially unemployed in South Africa. A further 3.5 million are classified as "discouraged work-seekers" or "unemployed." South Africa as the regional economic superpower has attracted migrants - both legal and illegal - from across the continent and beyond

"It is a new kind of racism," commented Annah Moyo, a human rights lawyer with the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF). "It is understandable, I think, because South Africans feel threatened as many employers prefer to hire foreign nationals because they can exploit them - but violence can never be justified."

Divide and rule to maintain whites in political power has been the history of Africa in the past but now industry and commerce , much of it black owned , now use the same tactic to weaken the working class to continue their control .

Shared exploitaion deserves the response of united resistance.

The Draining of Health- workers

Socialist Banner has directed attention to the export of people and their skills and talents from African countries before ( here and here ) and yet another report on the problem has come to our attention that highlights the problem of the brain drain .

Poor working conditions and inadequate pay have driven away health professionals from developing countries, thereby undermining medical services, a conference to address the global shortage has noted. The deficit, the conference heard, had reached four million doctors, nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals. Of these, one million are needed in Africa alone .

Some 57 countries, especially in Africa and Asia, are particularly affected and unable to effectively provide access to essential health services, prevention and information campaigns, drug distribution and other life-saving interventions such as immunisation, maternity care and treatment of several diseases. While Sub-Saharan Africa has 11 percent of the world population and 24 percent of the global burden of disease, it has only 3 percent of the world’s health workers. In Africa, 36 countries have fewer than 2.3 doctors, nurses and midwives per 1,000 people, mainly because of “brain drain” of trained personnel to developed countries. Only two countries have fulfilled a 2001 pledge by African countries to commit 15% of their national budgets to funding the health sector to meet the Millennium Development Goals. None of the East African countries have met that pledge. Uganda contributes 9.6%, while Kenya and Tanzania contribute only slightly more.

Uganda’s health minister, Stephen Malinga, said his country had lost more than 500 doctors and thousands of nurses, of whom 200 were working in South Africa. "Our neighbours have also taken them ... they are paid in dollars in Sudan and others with indispensable expertise have gone to Rwanda," he said. Those who opt to stay in Uganda, Malinga explained, were earning so little they could often not afford to pay the rent. Uganda thus had one doctor for 100,000 patients. [ An EU official said "The corruption index in Uganda, especially in the health sector, is still very high. I think health comes second after the Police in corruption.”]

Global Health Workforce Alliance said one in four doctors trained in Africa was working in western industrialised countries.

"They seek better employment and quality of life. Income is an important motivation for migration as well as better working conditions, career opportunities and more job satisfaction," Sigrun Mogedal, one of the conference organisers said.

The conference held out its begging bowl to solve the problem with the usual plea for funds - a 10-year global action plan to deal with the problem, which would require US$3.3 billion per year to train 1.8 million health workers in Africa for the next eight years. Another $27 billion would be required to pay them to stay. Needless to say , no solution , at all .

Stating the Obvious

If West African governments are serious about reducing migration from their countries they must invest in improving living conditions and reducing inequality, according to sociologists, economists and other experts .

"The distribution of economic gains is still largely inequitable, leaving the vast majority of the people below the poverty line," the UN's African Institute for Economic Development and Planning , Aloysius Ajab Amin told participants, blaming economic policies that are failing people in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Amin said youths across the continent lived in "misery" caused by soaring unemployment and inadequate basic infrastructure while seeing their peers who have migrated sending money back home. "What readily comes to their mind is how to join the migration train."

Abdoulaye Kane, of the University of Florida's Centre for African Studies, said he was concerned that in many societies in the Sahel region of West Africa where migration has become the norm, other options were dissolving. "If you go to the border area of Senegal, Mali and Mauritania now you have a whole social pressure on young people to move, to migrate, to go out, because it's seen as the only way to succeed socially speaking . People are now saying you don't need to go to school, because they compare those who went to school and those who have migrated in terms of their buying power."

Sociologist Ba said:-
"Migration is a reaction to scarcity..."

Football Trafficking

The African Nations Cup tournament is over and Egypt are the winner , defeating Cameroon . Whoooooopeeeee !!

Socialist Banner reported previously on the new exploitation of the football scout and the poor yet talented youngsters of Africa and and now another BBC report describes the people trade industry in the world of soccer :-

Football is more than a sport; it is a weaver of dreams.
It can fulfil the hopes of a young boy and his family trying to escape poverty like Michael Essien - now worth millions and playing for Chelsea - or Didier Drogba from neighbouring Ivory Coast, one of the best strikers in the world.
A well as hope there is greed, as unscrupulous adults traffic increasing numbers of African youngsters to Europe, exploiting their dreams, then abandoning them.

Fahd Abu Bakari is a 16-year-old Ghanaian who lives in Accra.
He told us he wanted to be the new Michael Essien and that agents were always turning up to his club's games.
"Finding the money for the visa and passport to go to Europe is not easy," he said. "Some boys ask their families to help them and then when they're successful they will pay them back."
Fahd's mother Christiana Kissiwah says she would love her son to go to Europe. She makes a modest living cooking and selling food from a stall outside her home. Success in Europe will of course not only realise her son's dreams but also those of his family - to live a better life.

But Fahd and his parents are easy prey for the growing number of unlicensed so-called football academies and agents in Ghana. They claim - for a fat fee - that they can introduce a youngster to a top European club. Sometimes that fee is raised by desperate parents selling their home, handing over the deeds or selling family heirlooms like jewellery.

The European Union says it is concerned about the trafficking of African children for football . The charity Save the Children is working hard to inform African families of the dangers of dealing with unlicensed agents and middlemen.

Karim Haggui, a 24-year-old Tunisian who plays for Bayer Leverkusen in Germany but competed this month in the African Cup in Ghana in response to the Quatari largest talent search in soccer history, a screening of 400,000 boys his age across seven African countries., said :-
''There are a lot of youngsters a lot of talent who are here and who finish their careers in Africa without anyone ever seeing them,'' Haggui said. But if Africans end up playing for another country's national team, he added, ''it becomes commerce.''

But for the poor, football will always be an attractive way to escape poverty-stricken lives - so stamping out exploitation won't be easy.

"Ball and Chains"

The BBC carries a report of a documentary called "Ball and Chains" on African football players in Europe and their particular exploitation .

Every year hundreds of young African players come to Europe in the hope of striking it rich, following in the footsteps of stars such as Chelsea's Didier Drogba or Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o. But for the handful who make it, far more fail. And yet they keep coming. The few successful examples are skewing the perceptions of young Africans, and in many cases encouraging them to abandon their education.

Raffaele Poli, a Swiss academic, has studied the career paths of African footballers in Europe.
He looked at 600 players who played in the top European leagues in 2002.
Four years later, only 13% had progressed upwards. A third had simply disappeared from professional football.

Many clubs have made a business out of importing cheap African talent and then selling it on to wealthier European clubs. In the global football business, though, the talent is at the mercy of unscrupulous agents and clubs. Dirk de Vos of the Belgian football players' union showed us a contract between a club and an African player.
Or rather, two contracts.
One, properly printed, gave the player the correct minimum wage and benefits, and was lodged with the football federation. The other, hand-written, showed the true salary - less than a quarter of the official figure.
"They have no choice but to sign the second contract," says de Vos.

Other players we met had simply been abandoned on the streets by their agents when they failed a trial, or had their contract terminated.

Scams and false paperwork are common. In Ghent a young Nigerian player was recruited at the age of 15. Too young to play officially, his agent had taken his passport to the Nigerian embassy in Brussels, where he had paid to have it "amended" to make him appear older.
A Cameroonian player for Bayern Munich turned out to be travelling on a passport that actually belonged to a French woman.
"You can bribe anyone," says Jean-Claude Mbvoumin a former Cameroonian international player, who now runs a support group for abandoned footballers in Paris.

"It's important to dream," says Jean-Claude Mbvoumin, "but the dreams about football now are not realistic."

The Guardian also reports soccers exploitaion of African football talent . In the slums of Jamestown, outside the Ghanaian capital, Accra , a weather-beaten billboard poster shows Michael Essien holding out a ball dotted with black stars, his country's national symbol, the Ghana and Chelsea midfielder beckons fans to 'Be Proud' . There are an estimated 500 illegal football academies operating in Accra alone. Thousands more are spread across Ghana. Many are run by the roadside; most have no proper training facilities . According to the Confederation of African Football, the sport's governing body in the continent, all such institutions must be registered with the local government or football association. The reality in Ghana and neighbouring Ivory Coast is that the greater the success of West African players in Europe, the more unaccredited academies spring up. Most demand fees from the children's parents and extended families, who often take them out of normal schooling to allow them to concentrate on football full-time. Since having a professional footballer in the family would be the financial equivalent of a lottery win, many reckon the risk to their child's education worth taking.

Coaches, as well as European and Arab middlemen, haggle over the best players, signing some as young as seven on tightly binding pre-contracts - effectively buying them from their families - with the hope of making thousands of dollars selling the boys on to clubs in Europe. In other cases, they extort the cost of passage from their families. Many take the deeds on houses and even family jewellery in return for their services. This process of exploitation is raising alarm among West Africa-based NGOs including Save the Children and Caritas.

Tony Baffoe, the former Ghana captain, now an ambassador for this year's African Nations Cup, admits that 'the trafficking of children to play football is a reality we must all face'

In West Africa serious money is being invested by European giants such as the Dutch clubs Ajax and Feyenoord, who both operate academies in Ghana. Just one top-class player every five years would cover the running costs of these accredited academies . French clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco also maintain scouting networks in the region. Manchester United have bought a controlling interest in Fortune FC, a South African second-division side.

The exploitation of young footballers has even been called a new 'slave trade' and is leaving a tragic legacy of homeless young footballing hopefuls across Europe.

'This football-related trafficking and the widespread creation of so-called schools of excellence is an area of huge growing concern for Save The Children,' says Heather Kerr, the charity's Ivory Coast country manager.

Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa, football's world governing body, accused Europe's richest clubs of 'despicable' behaviour and engaging in 'social and economic rape' as they scour the developing world for talent.

Marie-George Buffet, a former French Sports Minister, recently claimed that many French-run academies, both in France and in Africa, were corrupt and run by unlicensed agents who needed controlling.

Professor Pierre Lanfranchi, an expert in the development of football worldwide and a consultant to Fifa. He says corruption in Africa, with poorly run national governing bodies, makes it easy for European clubs to cherry-pick the best young players and that there are no foundations to the professional game in Africa

Culture Foot Solidaire is a charity set up to help African teenagers trafficked or sent to Europe for football trials, then abandoned. Jean-Claude Mbvoumin, the president of the charity said:-
"One-month visas are easy to get with bribes in Africa, but after they fail their trials they stay on. They have nothing to go back to. These kids are as young as 14, they end up on the streets, worse off and in more danger than they could ever be at home." There is now a huge business to be made from football, says Mbvoumin, and it feeds on people's dreams of a better life for their family. "...vulnerable people are lured into a kind of debt slavery in the expectation of a better life. These brokers are getting $3,000 per child and offering to smuggle them out on the promise that they will sign for a big club. So many boys have gone missing in this way... "

Need a life , Will travel

Migration has been an essential mechanism for survival in the harsh climate and erratic agricultural conditions of the Sahara and Sahel regions for as long as people have lived there.

Tens of thousands from Niger work in Libya. Between 65,000 and 120,000 sub-Saharan Africans enter the Maghreb (Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya) yearly, according to estimates collated by Hein de Haas, a researcher at the International Migration Institute at Oxford University. The money they send back to Niger forms a major part of Niger's economy. Official remittances in 2005 totalled some US$60 million, according to the World Bank, with undocumented remittances to Niger believed to be even higher. This report describes the futility of discouraging migration

"Living in Tripoli means accepting all kinds of inhuman and degrading treatment: Libya is a land of all kinds of discrimination between people; it is not a welcoming place, and that's why I have taken the chance to come back to Niger"

International Organisation for Migration spokeswoman for West Africa Jo-Lind Roberts added that only once people have arrived in their destinations do they find out there are very few opportunities for them. "And that's also something that only someone who has tried to cross either by sea or desert has experienced. People here [in West Africa] have no idea about the lack of opportunity when they travel."

"Providing information to people is fine, especially so they are aware of the very present dangers," said Hein de Haas, a researcher at the International Migration Institute at Oxford University. But he noted: "These campaigns portray migrants as victims and as vulnerable people who don't know what they are doing. Based on my own experience interviewing migrants I don't have that impression,"

In his view migration is an economic imperative for many Africans. "The fact remains that the income gaps between sub-Saharan Africa, north Africa and Europe are huge, so the main rational for economic migration is still there."

Tens of thousands of people make dangerous boat journeys across the Atlantic to Europe each year, driven by poverty and a search for the relative wealth they see other successful migrants have achieved.
Pape Demba Fall, a senior researcher focused on migration at Cheikh Ante Diop University in the capital Dakar said . "It should not be forgotten that people who choose to leave are already well aware of the risks," he said. "They know it very well, they have seen it themselves, but that doesn't change their minds, and that is shown by the fact that more not less people are migrating every year from Senegal."

The IOM estimates that 31,000 people attempted the journey to Europe by sea from Senegal in 2006, of whom some 6,000 died or went missing at sea.

To feed oneself , to provide for ones family , men and women will always seek other lands , and while the grass is still literally greener on the other side then men and women will endeavour to reach it . Only when it is possible to maintain an adequate living standard at home , will men and women stay at home . That is something Capitalism will never be able to offer many people throughout Africa