Don’t judge a book by it’s cover

European Commission pledges another €90 million to migration-related projects under the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa

In light of the migration crisis, I recently asked my grandfather, an immigrant himself, why he chose to migrate to Canada. His response was, “I didn’t want to, your mama did… but she has guts.” Leaving your family, friends, and home to move to a country you know nothing about is a difficult decision that most migrants don’t want to make. More disadvantageous was the fact that the undergraduate and graduate degrees he obtained from his homeland were both rejected as incompatible in Canada—therefore, he had to restart from the bottom. I asked him why he didn’t stay and he explained that he was a family man and Canada was a good place to raise a family because there were better opportunities, thus leading to a more secure life. While my grandfather’s decision to migrate was still tough, many of the migrants traveling to Europe don’t have it this easy and understanding what drove them to leave can make a significant difference in managing the migration crisis, as well as deterring further migration.

While European leaders may disagree on what the future of Europe should look like, they should be able to agree on what the future of undeveloped and war-torn countries should look like—prosperous and peaceful. In a continued effort to address the root causes of migration, last week the European Commission approved 3 programs in Northern Africa that will contribute another €90 million to the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa—a project that seeks to foster stability and contribute to better migration management by addressing the root causes of destabilization, forced displacement and irregular migration. Complementary to ongoing projects of the EU Emergency Trust Fund, the projects will support the life-saving efforts of Moroccan and Tunisian national institutions for migrants at sea, improve the management of the maritime border, and fight against smugglers. Additionally, it will develop programs in conjunction with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which protects refugees and migrants at disembarkation points, detention centers, secluded desert areas, and urban centers in Libya. Lastly, the projects will partner with the Libyan Ministry of Labor to develop economic opportunities for migrants in the domestic labor market.

But this new commitment only targets the process of migration, therefore controlling how it happens rather than deterring migrants from wanting to migrate. While the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa has projects that target sectors influencing migration, such as economic development, strengthening resilience, migration governance and management, and improvements in overall governance, there consistently remains a gap in policy and practice—something that can be explained by our understanding of migration-inducing factors.

First, it is important to bring to light the divide in migration discourse on who the main migrant-generating countries are in order to determine what causes emigration. A couple years ago, the European Commission’s Vice President Frans Timmermans declared that more than half of all migrants to Europe are motivated by economic reasons rather than attempting to flee war or persecution, and they are coming from North African countries such as Morocco or Tunisia, where there is no conflict.

However, Middlesex University in the UK developed a project called “Mapping refugee reception in the Mediterranean,” which found that the majority of incoming migrants in 2015-2016 had claimed to be fleeing persecution, war, famine, and personal insecurity. Additionally, the majority of arrivals in Italy were coming from countries such as Nigeria, Eritrea, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Senegal, and Mali. In Greece, the majority of migrants were arriving from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Where the facts are true about economic migrants from North Africa, the International Organization for Migration found that North African countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia are migrating to France, Spain and Italy, in part reflecting post-colonial connections. Thus, the idea that migrants are primarily coming from conflict-free countries is not an overall phenomenon for Europe, but rather a country-specific situation.

Second, it is important to understand where they come from and why they migrated so that we can create sector-targeted and country-specific solutions in migration-related projects. The EU differentiates between refugees/ asylum-seekers and economic migrants through a dichotomy of forced-migration and motivated-migration—conflict, violence, and oppressive dictators force refugees and asylum-seekers to migrate. Whereas, economic migrants are motivated by greater economic opportunities in developed countries. However, this dichotomy can be damaging because it deters attention from the struggle economic migrants are attempting to escape. Famine, poverty, ecological disasters, and climate change are factors that can also force, rather than motivate, people to migrate—and an emphasis on forced is needed as economic migrants are often portrayed as motivated to migrate.

For example, Timmermans claimed migrants are fleeing conflict-free countries, such as Morocco, for economic motivations. However, this provides a very narrow perception of their experiences. In comparison to other African countries, Morocco is relatively more stable—but the existence of other problems gives citizens understandable reasons to migrate. The multidimensional poverty index combines several factors that contribute to experiences of deprivation: poor health, lack of education, inadequate living standards, lack of income, disempowerment, poor quality of work, and threat from violence. With a population of around 36,200,000 people, 15.6% of those living in Morocco are living under multidimensional poverty, which amounts to roughly 5,400,000 people. Having such a large number of people living in these conditions can have far-reaching effects on the atmosphere of the country, therefore negatively affecting citizens’ hopes for economic prosperity.

Additionally, civil society faces threats to peaceful demonstrations and freedom of expression. For example, according to Transparency International, every week at least one journalist is killed in highly corrupt countries and 90% of those victims in the last six years were killed in countries that scored 45 or less on the index—Morocco received a score of 40. With regards to law enforcement, the country has defined terrorism in overly broad terms, allowing it to abuse the law and wrongly indict citizens under terrorist charges—something commonly seen against oppositional voices to the government. Women are also at risk under a number of discriminatory laws, such as prosecution for filing rape charges that are not later sustained, or prosecution for pregnancy or bearing children outside marriage. Morocco has also sustained an unsafe environment for expressing sexual orientation and gender identity, as it continues to jail citizens for same-sex conduct. Additionally, corruption remains a significant problem for businesses, with majority of the county’s largest industries monopolized by the royal family and elite.

Despite these realities, countries such as Morocco are given substantially less attention in solutions to the root causes of migration. For example, 100% of the aid given to Morocco from the European Union Trust Fund for Africa goes towards improved migration management—which helps them to manage migrants disembarking from their ports, rather than to address the root causes of Moroccan migration. The continued systematic violations of human rights and the lack of involvement by international actors towards reforming these practices will only postpone changes to migration patterns of Moroccans.

Morocco’s situation pales in comparison to countries in the African continent facing civil wars, but despite not carrying the same image as refugees and asylum-seekers, we should not judge a book by its cover because the realities on the ground combine to create a country where one cannot live freely—a reason I believe is sufficient enough to leave. If the EU truly wants to stem the current migration pattern, especially of migrants not classified as refugees and asylum-seekers, then it should work towards addressing the smaller, yet important, issues in north African countries.