CONTRIBUTION BY MR PETER BILL KISITU
http://www.virtual-personnel.com
Introduction
There are no international arrangements at present to recognize economic migration as forced migration hence most of the people in this category will end up either as refugees or illegal immigrants. The illegal immigrants will accept working conditions that are below what the authorities in host countries recommend. These will enter the EU illegally or just overstay their visa.Perhaps it is important to give a profile of an illegal economic migrant at this point so that we have a clear picture as we go along.
The profile of an economic migrant
• Fairly educated, from high school dropout to university graduates.
• Urban to semi-urban dweller with frequent access to the media(mainly international media)(It should be noted that Rural Africa has access, mainly to government media and mostly radio, the lack of electricity means that images of Hollywood, Paris and London are never seen)
• Has got access to 2000-3000 euros in cash, through relatives or in the form of property that can be sold to raise this amount.
• Has got relatives or friends in the EU (Abroad)
With this profile in mind, we can now discuss what motivates these people to migrate: It is said that there are push factors such as poverty, conflict, natural disasters and famine and pull factors such as the lure of better economic prospects and a western life. We note that economic migrants are mainly influence by pull factors.
Main causes of economic migration
Media
According to a Rutledge article edited by Nancy wood and Russel King, the media serves to increase economic migration in the following way:
Images transmitted from the destination countries or by the global media are an important Source of information for potential migrants, for example about how immigrants are depleting national coffers of destination countries. Whether this information is accurate or not, it can act as an important stimulant to move. Images of wealth and a free and relaxed lifestyle in the west are commonplace in developing countries.
Returning migrants collude in strengthening the veracity of these images mainly to impress and partly to deny any elements of failure, suffering or exclusion to their family, friends and to themselves. An example is an African who lives on 10 British pounds per day in London, when he goes to Africa he will spend 300 pounds per day, this big spend will mislead the locals into thinking there is so much money out there not knowing this man has been saving for twelve months just to come and impress.
The local media has not helped either; they have concentrated on foreign news reinforcing the belief that the European way of life is superior to the African one. Case in point: Ugandans know more about the English premiership than about their local football leagues. If you visited any part of Uganda and asked any Ugandan aged between 18 and 35 to name just three Ugandan footballers you will get a blank, however if you asked the same person to name the entire line up of Manchester United, they will answer with ease. In nightclubs, on Fm stations there are songs by local artists about Arsenal and Manchester United but none about local teams.
The local media needs to report in a way that builds the confidence and self -esteem of their people by praising their sportsmen and women, culture, musicians while the western Media needs to give Africa more positive coverage, by highlighting some success stories that build pride and hope for Africa. The media can also be used to tell people about the dangers of illegal migration, such as deportation, detention, alienation or the risk of death by drowning on rough seas or suffocation in truck bodies. I discussed this point with an official of the EU delegation in Uganda but he said we should not spend EU money on any thing that portrays the EU in a negative light. The other solution to this problem may be to increase funding for local sports programs and for media training to improve the quality of reporting.
Causes of illegal migration
Chief among these are lack of information on legal channels, inaccessibility of these embassies, intimidation and high visa fees
Intimidation
Terrorist threats against Western installations abroad have led to the fortification of most European Embassies abroad, sometimes with the presence of heavily armed security personnel. I tried to photograph the perimeter wall around the British High Commission in Kampala so I can show you how heavily guarded it is. Unfortunately I was arrested on the spot and my camera was confiscated, later the camera was returned but the memory card retained, later the security manager, a one Mr. Simon Bowskill came and he deleted all my holiday photos before returning my memory card, I told them that I wanted to show MEPs how similar it looks to the terrorist prison at Guantanamo bay, and he replied" If you think we are heavily guarded, you simply have no idea." By any standard, this is a terrifying experience, when one thinks of this experience, they will evaluate all available options. On this note, people smugglers offer better ‘customer service’ than the embassies since they meet their victims in informal settings like restaurants.
Witch doctors and pastors
Because of the intimidating nature of embassies, most visa applicants do have to consult a witch doctor, a pastor, or both before they can start processing their visas. It is now common for witch doctors to announce on radio and in Newspapers that they have the magic to influence the outcome of a visa application.
lack of information on legal channels.
Among the other Embassies I visited were the French, Belgian and Danish. I discovered that the Embassy of Denmark was the most inaccessible.
One is not granted access to the embassy premises, the security can give out visa forms from a pigeon hole at the gate to the embassy and that is all, I asked the security officers for information on study opportunities in Denmark and they simply answered that they could only give out visa forms, more information can be got from the internet. I told them that like the 98% of other Ugandans, I had no access to the internet and they said that is not their problem.
The French embassy too, does not allow access to the premises, all questions are answered on the main road, but with a more courteous receptionist who answers some of the questions. Lastly, I visited the Belgian Embassy, which in my opinion offers the best service of the four embassies I visited. The security at the Belgian embassy is there to make sure that visitors are not armed, but they kindly admit the visitor into the embassy premises where the visa officer can answer queries directly. So what makes the Belgian Embassy in Kampala have some of the best services and the Danish embassy have some of the worst service when the two are Schengen countries and are about 100 meters apart?, Even though the Belgian visa officer did not answer most of the questions I had, but by talking to me directly, I got a good feeling of respect and trust.
Visa Fees
The other anomaly I found at the Danish Embassy was that the Visa fee for Denmark is 92 euros while for France and Belgium it is 60 euros, why the difference if the Schengen visa fee is fixed by the EU. A second anomaly I found with visa fees was with the British visa. The fees are 100 euros for a
multiple six months visa, to 450 euros for a marriage visa. This is very expensive. The current exchange rate between Uganda shillings and British pound sterling was:
Currency market rate 1 £ = 3400 Uganda shillings
British visa purposes, 1 £ = 3700 Uganda shillings
I left a questionnaire at the British high commission, the main questions were, why are theirfees higher than the rest of the EU member states and why they exchange the pound at a rate higher than the market rate? and was told to contact Mr. John Hamilton and I called several times to get some answers from him but was always reportedly out of the office. We need some explanations on these anomalies from both the British and Danish authorities.
Loopholes at Airports
Airlines:
I interviewed people from several airlines but the country manager of SN Brussels airlines gave me the most credible and detailed information. He told me that per month, they have 15 suspicious cases and 2 obvious fraud cases. Check-in is done by handling companies in the presence of one or two airlines staff. When Fraud is involved, a procedure agreed by the Civil Aviation authority of Uganda is followed. However, according to information I got from a former employee of a handling company, the procedure of the CAA creates a vicious cycle. CAA recommends that the suspect and his passport should be handed over to the police and the airlines retain the ticket.
But the police has no transport facilities to go and cross check the visas and passports at the concerned embassies, so they take a small bribe and will release the suspect with his passport, the following week the same person could be back with the same or new passport. To fight fraud the police and immigration must properly investigate and document all cases before they release the suspects, in this case the knowledge gained can be used to improve the security at airports and to trace the sources of fake visas and passports.
Our response (Proposed solution)
We have set up a visa advice bureau that will have an internet connection to give people all the information they need on legal channels to come to the EU, for example on scholarships, sports programs and jobs. With the help of the Conservative MEP for London Mr. Syed Kamal, we hope to acquire hundreds of computers from digital pipeline for schools in E.Africa and some of these computers will be used in the Visa Advice Bureau. We will also give information on the dangers of illegal migration such as drowning, detention,
deportation, social exclusion, economic and sexual exploitation etc.
If we get money, we can run media programs on these dangers. We shall give people options for example e-business between Uganda and the EU, suggesting alternative destinations if they cannot have a visa for the EU, these alternatives may be Singapore, Hongkong etc for people who want to travel for business these are very good alternatives. Act as mediators where visa applicants feel they have been treated unfairly. Collect and document information from visa applicants, airports, airlines, the public, and embassies while respecting the confidentiality of the sources. The knowledge collected will give us new insights into the problem of legal, illegal, and economic migration. The manager of Digital pipeline tells me that they can help us set up ICT centres where schools in Uganda and in the EU can jointly work on projects and the same centres can be used for ebusiness, these centers can go along way in eliminating the need to travel.
Trade.
We are working with the Conservative MEP for London Mr. Syed Kamal to find markets for our agriculture products from East Africa. If we export raw materials, we export jobs together with the raw materials and the migrants that are coming here are chasing after those jobs, so in order for our export program to have an impact we shall request our clients to set up coffee processing plants in Uganda, so we can export finished or semi finished products. Therefore, we can create jobs at home while earning money from exports.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
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