Remittance From Abroad: The Gloomy Side

Remittances from the Diaspora have been identified as a key source of development funding for a continent trapped in social, political and economic quagmire and, in some cases, outpacing official development assistance and superseding traditionally top foreign exchange earning commercial vendible in some countries on the continent.

In its new report, 'Global Development Finance 2005' the World Bank noted that 'workers remittances provide valuable financial resources to developing countries, particularly the poorest'. It estimated remittance flows to Africa at $200 billion-far more than official development assistance and foreign direct investment.

Whilst this development is agreeably a lifeline for the benefiting economies and millions of poor individuals on the continent, the propensity on the part of beneficiaries-governments, institutions and individuals in recipient countries-and advocating bodies and institutions-World Bank, IMF and other research based institutions- to be inattentive or gloss over the gloomy inconspicuous side of this trade is incontrovertible.

Undeniably, migration has made it possible for many millions of immigrants to fulfill their dreams and aspirations in life, and the African immigrant forms a part of this success stories. But just as there are side effects for medications that are supposed to provide healing to ailing bodies of mankind, so are there fallouts, with negative life changing effects, for many individuals who find themselves on the wrong side of the migration bandwagon.

For the purpose of this commentary, there is the need to categorize the African immigrant, who remit families, friends and other relations back home, into two main social castes: you are either legal or illegal.

The former category comprises African immigrants holding citizenship rights of their host countries, work permits, students with work authorization and other forms of legal arrangements that allow these individuals to employ and be employed. The later group includes those without the legal authorizations to work in these countries and, therefore, whatever services these persons render for a financial reward is criminalized. They comprise persons on visitors' visas, tourist visas, undocumented persons who enter these countries through unapproved means, some at the very peril of their lives.

With the first category of individuals, it is not uncommon to find highly qualified African immigrants with working rights either unemployed or in menial jobs with no job security. The saddest thing about this phenomenon is the fact that some of these individuals received their trainings in some of these countries of immigration and, therefore, their certificates and abilities to perform are not in doubt or in question.

When this happens, the time and resources spent in educating oneself is never compensated for in a commensurate employment. This is s major setback to the equal opportunity clauses that are ranted day in day out in these countries of immigration and does not inspire confidence in affected individuals. A reaction to this phenomenon is the classical reaction by the French youth from ethnic minority backgrounds in two weeks wave of arson against cars and schools across France not to mention the economically disenfranchised African immigrants and Black in New Orleans as Katrina had exposed.

For students, though they have working rights, the limitations on what kind of jobs they can take and how many hours they can work- usually unprofessional jobs and 20 hours of work during term time respectively-are restrictive determinants of frugal or meager earnings for their own upkeep and other exigencies.

For the second group without working rights, the picture is even more complex. Getting the opportunity to work is a nightmare. Those who do get the chance, work to feed a chain of vicious exploitative regimes; from the 'connection man' who provides the needed documentation, fake or authentic, to the employer who recruits these unfortunate individuals.

Huge sums of monies are paid to these 'connection men' with dubious characters who, in some cases, vanish into thin air compounding the already precarious situation of their clients. In other instances, employers engage the services of these individuals knowing very well that they have no working rights. This disposes them to all forms of exploitation and abuses from these cruel employers. Those within this group are the ones normally to receive what is below the national minimum wage. They are the ones to be hit in the face and discriminated against; and they are the ones to perform the most difficult and daunting task at the job places. Imagine the plight of an individual without working rights rendering services to an employer for a whole month only to be told to produce documentation allowing him working rights before he/she could be paid for such services. Interestingly, these employers are not oblivious of the status of these individuals but the love of money and sheer wickedness has dominated some of these transactions, which are the lots of African immigrants without working rights in the Diaspora.

The fear of being nicked, detained, removed or deported for living and working illegally are enough deterrents for these individuals to endure all this inhuman treatments without a word.

But in all this, the resilient and indomitable spirit of the African immigrant to fight on is just admirable in the face of all the distractions. It is not surprising to find these individuals, legal or illegal, working more than 20 hours out of the 24 hour and moving from one job to the other just to put food on the table of families and relatives back home and to keep their own bodies and souls together.

However, the tides are fast changing. Immigration issues are at their boiling points in Europe and America in recent times. The United States, which is home to some 11 million undocumented persons, is taking serious measures to stop illegal entrants to its territory and requiring employers to verify the legal status of their workers through the house legislation, billed as a border protection, anti-terrorism and illegal immigration control act.

Some countries in Europe have already been arresting, detaining and removing purported illegal immigrants in their countries under very dehumanizing circumstances.

But with youth unemployment rates sky-rocketing on the continent-75% of Africans under the age 30 unemployed, as estimated by the UN offices for West Africa-migration, legally or illegally, still remains very attractive to most African youth despite the dangers involved.

The thinking is that one may be the fortunate one to scale the barb fences successfully to the promise land where the pastures are green, so that one can also extend a helping hand to relations at home to free them from the devastating disgraceful effects of poverty.

Back home, expectations are so high among family members, friends and relations that it does not matter whether these individuals are able to make it to the so-called 'promise land' or not. It does not matter whether they are employed or not. After all who cares to hear their stories? They are in America and Europe where milk and honey flows, so they have no excuses.

The love of parents have grown cold towards their own progenitures and, in some cases, parents have denounced their sons/daughters and warned they should not even step foot at their grave sides when they pass away, because they have not been able to remit them as Johnny has been doing for his parents. Good friends have turned into bad guys and backbiters due to their friend's-in America and Europe-inability to send a mobile phone, money or even assist them to secure a visa to also visit the 'promise land'.

Children have become adults but have never set eyes on their parents except the periodic photographs their absentee fathers and mothers send from abroad because they have no legal documents that allow them to travel out and return to the 'promise land'. So the family bears the brunt in myriad of ways.

It is for the above reasons, the dehumanizing, chaotic and dangerous nature of recent migration trends that US lawmakers need to consider vis-à-vis the indispensable contributions these individuals make to the American economy in order to support the proposals for the guest worker programme. In this way, some level of sanity would be restored in the immigration process. Opportunity-seeking individuals born on the other side of opportunities unlimited would have the opportunity availed to them to improve their lives without going through very dehumanizing and dangerous processes.

Similar programmmes must also be encouraged in other countries of immigration to save the lives of our desperate young men and women who are needlessly killed each year hanging at the back of trains, concealing themselves in bowel of airplanes, hiding in the cabins of vessels and boarding ramshackle boats in their desperate bids to reach the 'promise land'.

Countries of immigration must be reminded that they cannot continue to porch away the highly-skilled, whose training was financed by the de rigueur contribution of those who do not normally benefit directly from the remittance of these individuals, whilst they continue to pay the price for a ruined health care provision, disarrayed educational system and other forms of poor social services as a result and attempts to escape these deprivations through migration are prevented.

African leaders must also take job creation very serious as it is not the duty of advance countries to absorb our youth who are desperately looking for opportunities to make a living.