Some rays of light on the plight of irregular migration within Africa
Posted: 4 April, 2019 Filed under: Cristiano d'Orsi | Tags: European Union, Horn of Africa, International Organization for Migrations, IOM, irregular migrations, Khartoum Process, migrant deaths, migrants, Niger, Southern Africa, trafficking of migrants, undocumented migrants, Western Africa 1 Comment
Author: Cristiano d’Orsi
Research Fellow and Lecturer at the South African Research Chair in International Law (SARCIL), University of Johannesburg
In 2018 alone, hundreds of witnesses confirmed more than 1 000 migrant deaths on the African continent. But researchers estimate that these numbers represent only a fraction of the overall number of deaths of people on the move in Africa.[1] According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), during the first three months of 2019, 98 migrants died in Africa (28 in North Africa and 70 in the Horn of Africa, mostly from drowning in the Red Sea whilst hoping to reach Saudi shores).[2] In 2018, the number of fatalities on the continent amounted to 1 401, mostly presumed to come from the Horn.[3]
Why has the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive not been applied during the migration crisis in order to receive Syrians and other asylum seekers?
Posted: 10 June, 2016 Filed under: Clara Burbano-Herrera | Tags: asylum, civil war, Council of the European Union, Directive on Temporary Protection, EU, EU states, European Asylum Support Office, European Commission, Europol, Frontex, immigration, irregular border crossings, Kosovo, Mediterranean, migrants, migration crisis, refugees, Syria, Turkey, UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, war, Yugoslavia 1 Comment
Author: Clara Burbano-Herrera
Fulbright Fellow, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University; Visiting researcher, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg); and FWO Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Human Rights Centre, Ghent University
The EU Border Agency Frontex indicates that a total of 1.83 million irregular border crossings were detected at the EU’s external borders in 2015, compared to 283 500 in 2014. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 1 015 078 people reached Europe irregularly in 2015 by crossing the Mediterranean, while a further 3 771 are believed to have drowned attempting the same journey. The main country of origin of applicants in EU+ countries (the 28 EU Member States as well as Norway and Switzerland) was Syria.
The National Migration Policy and its implementation framework: A precursor for a more effective migration governance in Nigeria
Posted: 30 October, 2015 Filed under: Uche Hilary-Ogbonna | Tags: access to education, disapora, health, human trafficking, IDP, implementation framework, international migration, legal frameworks, Mediterranean, migrant smuggling, migrants, Migrants and IDPs, migration, National Commission for Refugees, National Migration Policy, Nigeria, policy, refugees, rural-urban migration flows Leave a comment
Author: Uche Hilary-Ogbonna
Humanitarian Affairs Officer, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (UN OCHA) Abuja
Legal frameworks are the bedrock for any effective management system. They underscore the importance of articulating a set of aspirations in concise directives and regulations, offering guidance to the myriad of field operatives and interventions in the varied sectors of migration management, development or the society at large. For the migration sector in Nigeria, it has been a long, tough journey to the adoption of the National Migration Policy and its implementation framework. The Policy is widely considered a breakthrough piece of legal document which came to fruition on account of years of toil by a host of government functionaries, development actors, the academia and civil society organizations.
The Policy comes at a very important time in the global migratory scene with the rise in international migration across the Mediterranean resulting in multiple deaths. With over 170 million citizens, Nigeria is important in migration management as a country of origin, transit and destination for migrants. Nigeria faces challenges such as effective diaspora engagement and remittances, inter-regional, rural-urban migration flows, migration of highly skilled and unskilled labour, data generation, as well as trafficking in persons to mention a few.
What we need to succeed in the fight against human trafficking
Posted: 25 February, 2015 Filed under: Monique Emser | Tags: counter-trafficking, criminal networks, criminal syndicates, Human Traf, human trafficking, intelligence, law enforcement, LexisNexis, migrant smuggling, migrants, proactive, reactive, trafficking networks, victim-led investigations Leave a comment
Author: Monique Emser
Research Associate, Department of Criminal and Medical Law, University of the Free State, South Africa
World Day of Social Justice – Ending human trafficking and forced labour: 20 February 2015
While there is evidence to suggest that some trafficking networks in South Africa are transnational, exhibiting professional and entrepreneurial business structures and methods of operation, reported cases of human trafficking in South Africa to date tend not to be affiliated with large, sophisticated criminal networks. Rather, they involve opportunistic individuals or families who are loosely coupled in temporary arrangements with criminal syndicates and co-conspirators in points of origin and transit.
Small-time traffickers and their co-conspirators often ‘piggy-back’ on existing criminal networks involved in migrant smuggling or drug trafficking, using established transportation routes to hide their activities. Highly organised trafficking networks, on the other hand, have evolved to such an extent that some even exhibit professional structures and employ legal companies as a front for their illegal activities.[1] It is this flexibility and mobility of organisation which makes trafficking networks so difficult to detect and dismantle.
AfricLaw 