[Africa] Poverty Fuels Africans' Migration Across the Globe

from All Africa

BuaNews (Tshwane)

Lavinia Mahlangu

Apart from the main challenge of escaping poverty, migrating Africans faced challenges including xenophobia, restrictions to freedom of movement and human trafficking, a report commissioned by the Department of Social Development revealed yesterday.

Poverty was identified as the main driver of Africans' migration within the continent and across the globe in the Views on Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa: Proceedings of an African Migration Alliance Workshop.

This report of 11 research papers was commissioned by the Department of Social Development and compiled by the African Migration Alliance (AMA) - a network of policy researchers for the continent.

"Migration by the poor is a scorching issue in the world today - both inside their own countries and on the international scene, the world's poor are voting with their feet to escape poverty and make their bid for new lives in new places," the researchers said.

"Public anxiety is reaching fever pitch in the developed world, xenophobia is spreading, and governments everywhere are struggling to mobilize policies that will enable them to respond humanely and effectively to a rising human tide."

Although no exact migration figures were available, the African experts expected that as this "wave front" arrived in southern Africa- the new key target destination for the entire continent - it would have an increasing impact on Southern African Development Community countries.

The research indicated that traditional migration destinations and the face of African migrants was changing. The report said widespread impoverishment was sparking increased rural to urban migration, which ultimately moved out across national borders in the search for employment further afield.

The outcome seemed to be an expansion of the overall reach of African migration, beyond the borders of Africa to new destinations in the developed world.

"New migration hot spots are appearing globally: migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are now reaching Northern Europe, Canada, the US and Australia, leapfrogging the earlier overseas migration destinations in Europe that sourced their migrants from Arabic-speaking North Africa and from the white population of South Africa."

This increased movement beyond Africa's borders was being further fueled by the economic decline in each of the four African regions. The report showed that whereas in the past in West, East, Central and southern Africa, there had been one or two countries able to support the region by absorbing unemployment, this capacity was now being overwhelmed.

As old boundaries fell, migration experts predicted Africa becoming one migration "super-region", with migrants from many parts of the continent moving southwards to the new beacon destinations of South Africa and Botswana.

The impacts of these changes would be far-reaching and the report identified priority areas for decision-making and policy in this regard, namely:

* the African diaspora and the brain drain; * migrant remittances and the free movement of labour; * the feminisation of migration; * the refugee crisis and the question of internally displaced people; * xenophobia; and * human trafficking.

The African Union's 2004 Strategic Framework for a Policy on Migration in Africa has not yet been adopted, partly due to contestation over the extent of free movement of labour to countries of destination, including South Africa.

"Because of the informality and instability associated with migration flows, regulation is difficult and negative practices are not easy to identify or prevent," said the authors.

Across the world, developed countries were identified as being anxious to accept well-educated and qualified immigrants, but often tried to exclude and reject the uneducated unless there was a pressing need in their unskilled sectors.

Numbers of uneducated and unskilled migrants from the developing world were shown to exceed the numbers of the educated and qualified migrants who were most easily accepted.

According to the International Organisation for Migration's (IOM) Europe and North America figures, only about one African migrant in 35 to 40 is a professional.

Within Africa, the percentage is likely to be lower.

The researchers said the real benefits of migration may not appear until the second generation, while competition over jobs and facilities often appeared immediately.

However, the AMA authors point out that both the Economic Community of West African States and the East African Community had successfully adopted full free movement conventions, putting these regional associations far ahead of most nations in the developed world in this regard.

Researchers identified one of the main positive aspects of this migration, which was the money sent back home by African workers abroad.

Migrant workers were said to have sent an estimated US$93 billion (R659 billion) to Africa through formal channels in 2003, with possibly larger amounts being sent through informally.

"Africa's formal remittance returns have gone up by roughly 300% in the last 15 years as reliance on international remittances has moved to centre stage."

The report stated that Africa's rising xenophobia was often matched by increasing xenophobia overseas, especially in newer destinations where migration from Africa was not traditional practice.

"In South Africa, migrants have often been objects of violence and victimisation, and xenophobic feeling with disregard of migrants' rights has risen sharply in Botswana.

"The refugee crisis, concentrated in Central and West Africa, is at an unprecedented scale and international agencies struggle to cope with the demand. This is further complicated by almost equal numbers of internally displaced persons, who fall outside the United Nations net and do not receive systematic aid."

The AMA authors said there were no effective measures in place to deal with human trafficking, citing research from the IOM which confirmed that both women and children were being trafficked, by force, by deception and with parental consent in the face of severe destitution, both for forced labour and for sex.

This situation was said to be most serious in West Africa, especially in relation to trade in children.

However, different forms of trafficking also prevail in East and southern Africa, and South Africa itself showed up as a major transit country for trafficking of women and as a destination for Malawian and other African women, sold into the sex trade in the country's major cities.

The report reflected a guarded general optimism on the subject of migration as a fast-rising international priority for the African continent and beyond, but also put a priority on developing successful migration management by African governments and their key organisations.

The report concludes that migration is coming to be one of the policy hotspot issues of the new millennium, both for the migration destinations in the developed world and in those destinations Africa. -

Programme to train doctors in Cuba yields results

The Department of Health has welcomed the second group of South African medical doctors who completed their studies in Cuba recently.

The 22 doctors graduated at the Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa) near Pretoria last week, having been recruited as students with potential to study medicine, but could not afford study fees.

The newly qualified doctors were recruited from KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Free State, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Gauteng and North West, as part of an agreement signed between South Africa and Cuba in 1995.

A total of 430 medical students have been enrolled in the programme so far.

The agreement includes the recruitment of Cuban doctors to work in South Africa's underserved areas.

The new doctors completed five years of medical studies in Cuba and have already served their internship programme in South Africa, to ensure they have the necessary competencies to meet the local health care needs.

Like all other health professionals in South Africa, they will now serve one year of community service.

However, they are to remain with the public service for a minimum of five years as part of the bursary contract.

After being selected, the students study for five years and write the National Final Cuban Examinations.

On the sixth year, they return to South Africa to do their final clinical year and practical studies (internship) in various health sciences faculties.

They then sit for a South African examination with the rest of the medical students to qualify as doctors.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said government was pleased to welcome these new doctors into the public health sector.

"Many of these students would not have been doctors today because of the challenges of admission requirements and costs that many students from poor communities had to grapple with."

"Government took a decision to open this opportunity because we realised that there were many young people with great potential to serve the health sector. We are glad that today we are reaping the fruits of this investment," she said