About a year ago a friend of mine was working on his M.A thesis on human trafficking. His topic was human trafficking and the target region was the Southern nations, nationalities and people’s region. When he went out there to collect primary data, he unexpectedly came face to face with the practice and consequences of human trafficking.
There was quite a turn out to his call for a session of group discussion, interview and filling questionnaires. They mocked him about there being almost no treat to reward their cooperation. He noticed, however, that the laughter was getting louder and louder when he started the discussion on human trafficking. He told me that after a few minutes of discussion, a couple of guys wanted to cut the session short and fill the questionnaires before they depart early. He complied with their demands and shortly after, the two were on their way out.
After they left, he continued the discussion with the rest of the people in the group who told him that the departed guys were two of the most known human traffickers in the area. The traffickers felt like they could make fun of the issue and everyone who gathered there. Instead of being concerned or at least ashamed of their involvement, the traffickers were bold enough to go attend a session on fighting human trafficking and make a complete mockery of it.
The thing that surprised me a lot was, however, the reaction of the people. Even at a session like that, the people opted to see the funny side of the daring acts of the human traffickers. One would expect the people to be enraged and disapproving of the travesty of the human traffickers. On the contrary, they find their act as funny. May be the fact that they did not say a single word until the traffickers left the place says a lot about who commands fear among others. However, individuals or groups can always anonymously blow the whistle on such traffickers.
Their reactions get even more astonishing when one considers the fact that at least 2,650 Ethiopians from Hadiya zone alone lost their lives as a result of human trafficking between 2013 and 2016. The data further indicates that thousands more are unaccounted for or have physical damages in relation with their human trafficking. Neighboring zones are also thought to have similar conditions regarding human trafficking with the youth largely set on their way to South Africa. To make matters worse, those who made it to South Africa are not immune to the dangers as 1,134 of them died there during the same time.
It is so sad that people would even consider laughing along with the acts of the people who are directly or indirectly involved in the deaths of thousands of their young fellow countrymen. It is also difficult to use lack of awareness as a scapegoat since the community is at the forefront of the problems of human trafficking. In these communities, people have an illegal migrant in their families or they know someone who has dared the deadly trips to South Africa or somewhere else.
Despite the rampant death and abuse associated with migration through human traffickers, numerous people in the zones and woredas of the Southern nations, nationalities and peoples region still find life abroad luring enough to risk their lives. The successes of a few young people who safely made it to their destination and sent some money back home serves as a carrot for human traffickers to lure young people into making the harsh decision of braving the deadly journeys.
Illegal migrants have to risk everything when they set out on their journeys. It would seem irrational for a human to pay a large sum of money for human traffickers just to risk going through all these harsh circumstances or even lose their lives. However, Ethiopian migrants reportedly pay from 90-120 thousand birr for traffickers to get to South Africa. On their journeys, migrants are often forced to pay additional money or have their relatives send the money at the price of their lives.
It’s no wonder that human trafficking is the third most lucrative illegal business sector in the world preceded only by drug and arms trafficking. The factors that force them make these decision are generally categorized as push and pull factors. The push factors refer to local problems that tempt people to consider illegal migration. These include poverty, social attitude to life abroad, war, false promise of traffickers, family and peer pressure and unfair wealth distribution in a country. The pull factors, on the other hand, refer to perceived favorable conditions abroad that attract potential migrants. These include considerable job opportunity and relative peace.
The exacerbation of the problem leaves the country with considerable social, economic and political problems. The platform for prosperity and development is negatively affected by a chronic problem of illegal migration. The most notable consequences of illegal migration include:
Loss of the productive section of the population: from mere physical absence in the country to loss of life, human trafficking causes a huge loss of the productive section of the population. With the youth making an overwhelming part of those involved, the productive section of society is the most vulnerable of the economic groups. Shocking data like the one cited above involving Hadiya youth renders the problem concrete.
Exposure to unnecessary economic bankruptcy: households and the nation as a whole are exposed to preventable economic loss as families sell their houses and other assets to send their sons and daughters on the risky journey to preferred destinations of human trafficking.
Dependency Syndrome: the remittance sent by those living abroad also leaves their relatives here develop a sense of dependency. Instead of sorting their own life paths independently, they tend to wait for the handouts from abroad.
Informal route for remittance: migrants who do not have legal status in their host countries do not usually use banks and other formal routes to transfer money. Instead, they send the money through travellers. That hinders the formal route from reaping the benefits.
Exposure to various diseases: the hunger, thirst, lack of hygiene, rape and organ harvesting associated with human trafficking exposed victims to various diseases.
Emigration aspiring generation: the ‘migration accelerates migration’ cycle draws many reeling into the lucrative business of human trafficking. The long term result is a generation aspiring to live abroad instead of earning a decent living locally and working towards a better nation.
Potential to harm bilateral relations: a large number of illegal immigrants make it hard for the host country to plan and implement social welfare policies. Negative perceptions of a social group by the host population could breed distorted image about a country. These perceptions slowly creep into the diplomatic sphere harming bilateral relations. Measures taken by a host country targeting a certain group could also strain bilateral ties.
The social, economic and political problems that illegal emigration entails make it difficult for a state to achieve major development goals. Such a scenario, on the other hand, is detrimental to individual, group and social hopes. Therefore, no one is truly beneficial from illegal migration in the long run.