Abstract
The increased government, media and public focus on migration from Africa to the EU in the past few years has led to an explosion in reporting from governments, NGOs, academics and quasi-academia. Within this context, there are a number of basic assumptions and discourses in relation to these migratory processes from Africa. The first assumption, often put forward by the media, is that migrants from Africa intend to cross the Mediterranean Sea in an effort to reach Western European countries. The second assumption is that in their effort to cross the Mediterranean, African migrants are facilitated by ‘criminal networks’. The third (and extremely popular in the last few years) assumption is that information and communication technologies have been instrumental in the planning of irregular migration and identifying smugglers to facilitate migration. The final assumption, which has also garnered increasing attention in recent years, is that understanding human smuggling finances can inform policies specifically targeting migrant smuggling. This article, which is based on in-depth interviews with Eritreans, who have migrated illegally in Egypt, aims to add to the understanding about how Eritrean people plan, fund and manage irregular migration journeys. In the process, it will attempt to debunk some of the common assumptions around irregular migration.
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Notes
First of the current spate of migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean, migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean are not a new phenomenon but 2014 marked the beginning of sustained cross-EU focus.
For example, see the January 2017 Italian 200 m Euro deal with Libya to ‘secure’ the southern border or the announcement in May 2017 of Germany’s ‘Marshall Plan for Africa’.
‘Root causes’ is a contested term but often refers to economic or other development activity, which aims to reduce supposed incentives for people to leave; for example, by creating jobs.
It should be noted that questions have been raised around whether these were all actually Eritreans. It was suggested that some Ethiopians or other nationalities may have claimed to be Eritrean to aid asylum claims.
The authors term this to be some Think Tank reporting, which is written with a more journalistic style and is not academically rigorous but is of use.
Of course, the issue of irregular migration from Africa is not only a European concern. In June 2019, for example, the US law enforcement agencies stopped a record number of African migrants at its southern border. These migrants embarked on journeys to South America either by boat or plane and then, on foot, through Colombia and Panama made their way to the USA (Sur 2019).
For descriptions of what constitutes ‘mixed migration’ see: http://www.mixedmigrationhub.org/member-agencies/what-mixed-migration-is/.
‘Irregular migration’ is termed here as being a journey which does not follow legal channels—similar to the IOM description—https://www.iom.int/key-migration-terms.
For the purposes of this article, ‘migrate illegally’ means crossing a border otherwise in accordance with one or more countries legal frameworks.
It has been reported that women have taken contraceptive pills before and during travel as they know they will most likely be subject to rape (Amnesty International 2016).
This may be attributed to the fact that an official of the Eritrean army, and the interviewee’s cousin, was involved in the smuggling process and as such perhaps additional funds would buy other officials’ loyalty.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Rob Mawby, and the anonymous reviewers, as well as Parisa Diba and Georgios Papanicolaou for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.
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Whittle, J., Antonopoulos, G.A. How Eritreans plan, fund and manage irregular migration, and the extent of involvement of ‘organised crime’. Crime Prev Community Saf 22, 173–190 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41300-020-00085-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41300-020-00085-8