Managing the issues of irregular migration among young people: Perspectives from Youth People

Today a lot of young people are migrating across boarders. Whereas some people have migrated through legal forms other have done so under clandestine manners. Daily, the images are portrayed – pictorially as well as verbally – of the different accounts of the harsh realities confronting thousands of youths of African descent staking attempts at finding the so-called greener pastures in the Western countries, particularly Europe and America. Over the land and across the sea, they made the tortuous journeys which frequently resulted in tragedies, with many of them either losing their lives or ending up in jails or detention camps before the shame of deportation to their countries of origin. There is, hardly, a group comparable in friendlessness to irregular immigrants. Neither could there have been a more community of citizens with overwhelming recorded cases of wanton abuse, traumas, humiliation with precipitates of anguish of physical and psychological defeat than as occurring among the migrants from the Northern to the South hemisphere. But even under such unsuccessful attempts are not going behind their intentions of migrating.

What question that comes to mind under this kind of situation are that what are the driving forces and what can both sending and host countries do in partnership to save the thousands of lives that are lost through migration?

During a study that was conducted recently by a team of young people from Young People We Care and also on our recent youth consultation on Migration and Development there were some interesting comments that some young people shared with us.

Its is expected that if these young voices of would-be migrants and migrants are handled and addressed with some strategically youth design interventions the situation high trend of irregular migration of young people to reach the Europe through the high-seas and the Sahara Desert as in some trend of migration will reduce.

Young people recommended that governments should implement policies that encourage youths to stay and engage themselves in positive activities that can contribute to development of their country. National Youth Policies that entails strategies and programmes for developing the capacity of young people and also the creation of well paying jobs and good working conditions for young people are important in reducing the level of migration on the basis of unemployment or underemployment as one Ghanaian participant suggested.

Youth migration should not be seen as purely negative; a positive aspect of youth migrating is that young people are exposed to how things are done politically and socially in their host countries, allowing them to see that things can be done in a different way improves the standards of living upon return.

It is thus important for us to share ideas on some strategies of promoting return of young migrants to facilitate some development and change on some critical issues of development in the countries of origin.

To read the full report of the consultation please visit: • Report on the Youth Consultation on Migration ( http://www.ypwc.org/images/pdfs/report_on_the_youth_consultation_on_youth_migration_18_11_08.pdf  )