EU opens 'job centre' in Africa

from the BBC

The European Union has opened its first immigration centre outside Europe, in Mali's capital, Bamako.

Thousands of young West Africans try to make it into Europe illegally each year and many die on the way.

The EU hopes the new centre will help people find legal work in Europe and cut down on illegal migration.

The new centre will offer guidance on legal migration and help with job training and the search for work abroad, the European Commission says.

It will also raise awareness about the dangers of illegal migration.

The BBC's West Africa correspondent Will Ross says young Malians desperate for work would have hoped this new centre would be a recruitment agency, but at this point the EU is stressing that no specific job vacancies will be on offer.

In the future, however, European countries may recruit via the Bamako office.

Spain is already doing this in Senegal by offering seasonal contracts picking fruit or working in hotels to several hundred people each year, with demand so high it is in effect a job lottery.

Graduates

Last week, the Spanish coastguards rescued a group of 230 young Africans - the largest single boatload of illegal immigrants to reach Spain.

A sharp increase in the cost of food and fuel has recently made life even harder for people in this region, our correspondent says.

In many West African countries, even university graduates struggle to find employment and a menial job in Europe is therefore a surer way of supporting a family.

Many observers say that making world trade fairer is the best way to tackle illegal migration as it would help reduce the main cause - poverty.

Mali is one of the world's poorest countries and growing cotton is a popular livelihood.

But subsidies paid to US cotton farmers make it almost impossible for Malians to compete.

Sandro De Luca of the Rome-based International Committee for the Development of Peoples (CISP) said it was too early to judge the immigration centre initiative, but it would not solve the problem of illegal migration alone.

"People will continue to look for ways of migrating without taking into consideration the regulated channel of doing this," he told the BBC.

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