Japa: The battle of African youths migrating abroad

Amie Jobe is a survivor of human trafficking.  She was lured into travelling to Cairo, Egypt, with a promise of a better life by a disguised trafficker.  She narrated her chilling experience at an ECOWAS Parliament meeting with youths in Banjul, The Gambia, where discussions were held about issues around irregular migration in West Africa. […]

Amie Jobe is a survivor of human trafficking.  She was lured into travelling to Cairo, Egypt, with a promise of a better life by a disguised trafficker. 

She narrated her chilling experience at an ECOWAS Parliament meeting with youths in Banjul, The Gambia, where discussions were held about issues around irregular migration in West Africa.

Jobe, who is a graduate of Mass Communication, escaped her ‘agents’ (traffickers) and returned to her mother’s town in Kaolack, Senegal, before moving to The Gambia a year later.

She said that she was trafficked to Egypt by an Immigration officer with the promise of a fantastic, better job.

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She said: “In 2013 when I was trafficked, we hardly heard of human trafficking. I trusted him -the Immigration officer-like a brother and he took advantage of me. I lost my dad, and I had younger ones to take care of, so I fell for his lies.

“He took all my documents and promised me a job in Egypt. He helped me secure a passport. I was handed over to an agent from Sierra Leone to take me to Senegal where Nigerian agents took over and took me to Egypt. They took a picture of me at the airport and when I asked why they were taking my picture, they told me it was because they would miss me.”

She flew from Darka to Istanbul and Egypt and later two men picked her up from the airport. 

She recounted: “It was a long-distance drive and when I asked where they were taking me, they did not respond. When we got to a 3-bedroom house, some people came to take my passport, saying they wanted to pray with it for me to get a good job. My phones were taken from me. I was locked up in a room and kept there for three weeks.”

Jobe knew she had been sold a pack of lies and was in deep trouble after her phones were seized and she was locked up.

Jobe leaving her country to seek greener pastures in another country is loosely referred to as Japa in Nigeria.

Japa is a derivative of the Yoruba language word and has gained widespread usage among Nigerian youths. 

It describes the act of fleeing the country and has become popular in referring to emigration abroad for better opportunities.

Just like Jobe, many African nationals, including Nigerians, have found themselves in the frightening situation.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) report, African emigration to other continents is determined by a combination of economic drivers and historical and cultural proximity. 

Pre-existing social ties, whether resulting from a common language – such as Egypt with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – or a shared political history – such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia with France – favour and facilitate migratory movements. 

Yet Africa currently receives little immigration from other continents, with the only large corridor being from the Occupied Palestinian Territory to Libya.

Jobe said her uncle was inquisitive when he did not hear from her for a long time.

“He kept on calling my phone. That was the only time I was given access to my phone. That was the only time I spoke with my family,” sighed Jobe as she recalled the ordeal as if it were yesterday.

She was later engaged as a domestic staff. 

She said: “I was taken to my madam who had three children. I was treated like a slave. I was paid 450 dollars monthly, but I was always left with 50 dollars as the traffickers took $400 from me every month. They said I will pay them for a year. I was getting ill and had no medication.”

The lady, who left her country with eyes full of dreams, soon lost her sparkle and became a shadow of herself.

Although she would later be assisted in retrieving her passports by some friends, she was arrested by the police and detained for weeks. 

According to her, she nearly committed suicide. Eventually, she was rescued and taken back to the Gambia. “When I returned home, my people didn’t welcome me. They  thought I went for prostitution.”

Today, Jobe, who has established an organisation called, Safe Home for Migrants Association (SaHMA), is among young people advocating for safe and regular migration and helping other trafficked women to settle and integrate into society.

In the past decade, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, more African youths have moved in search of greener pastures using irregular routes. 

The COVID-19 pandemic hit African countries badly, affecting their economies adversely. It led to the disruption of businesses, forcing countries into economic recession. 

A gender and human rights consultant, Nancy Jallow, said the push factors for African young people are poverty, high rate of unemployment, and desperation.

While many African youths feel the most visible option for them is to migrate to Europe, a large number of them cannot afford the expenses that come with regular routes.

Also, migration policies are becoming increasingly restrictive in many countries, and safe and regular migration options are put out of reach for many. 

This means many resort to undertaking risky irregular cross-border movements, which can lead to death or disappearance. 

Popular narratives around migrant deaths and disappearances have centred around the Mediterranean Sea, where thousands of deaths and countless more disappearances have occurred on several routes that involve the African continent, Weekend Trust gathered.

Jallow said: “Most of them are well aware of the dangers involved in taking the sea to travel to Europe, yet they risk their lives daily to take these deadly journeys.

“Some call it a suicide mission, but we should ask ourselves ‘Why are young West Africans on these suicide missions?’ It is because they are desperate! There is nothing for them in our countries. They feel destitute, they don’t feel like there are any opportunities for them.”

Many of them face dangers that are physically and emotionally draining. Many migrants travel through perilous routes, including the Sahara Desert. 

These journeys are fraught with risks such as extreme weather conditions, dehydration, and drowning. They also face violence, exploitation, and abuse from smugglers, traffickers, and even some authorities. 

The harsh conditions of the journey can lead to severe health issues, including malnutrition, dehydration, and infectious diseases. Limited access to medical care exacerbates these problems, it was gathered. 

The trauma of leaving home, coupled with the dangers faced during the journey, can lead to significant mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression.

 

Human trafficking connection

Human trafficking plays a significant and devastating role in the African migrant crisis. Many migrants fall victim to traffickers. 

These traffickers exploit their victims by subjecting them to forced labour, sexual exploitation, and even organ trafficking. 

Migrants are often promised safe passage to Europe or other destinations but are instead subjected to horrific conditions, a source told Weekend Trust.

The lack of effective legal frameworks and enforcement in many African countries makes it difficult to combat trafficking. Corruption and weak governance further complicate efforts to protect migrants and prosecute traffickers.

 

We were stripped, 10 killed – Returnee

The experience of Alagie Kanteh, a returnee from Italy, is worse. To get to Italy from The Gambia through the back door, he went through Senegal to Mali and Burkina Faso.

Kanteh, who miraculously returned alive narrated his experience to ECOWAS members of parliament during a meeting to find a lasting solution to the rush to Europe by West African youths through the irregular routes.

He narrated: “In Burkina Faso, we were asked to pay money for our passage. I was taken to a cell and asked to pay 10,000 CFA before I was allowed to rejoin the bus, we were travelling in.

“Then, we went to Agadez and met around 60 people there who joined us on the journey. Bandits attacked us and asked us all to get naked. They searched all of us and took all our money. We were naked from morning to evening.”

He said they were eventually left off the hook and then they proceeded to Libya. 

“In Libya, we were arrested and kept in the cell for nine months. I couldn’t communicate with anybody in The Gambia. I was taken to Misrata -Misrata is a city in north-western Libya, situated 187 km to the east of Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast- to work,” said Kanteh.

He continued: “For six months, I was cleaning their bullets. I was sleeping in the place where they kept their bombs. I eventually ran away. We were 11 but 10 persons died. I was the only one who survived. I was caught and taken to jail for another month. I was in Libya from 2005 to 2009 before I was able to return to The Gambia.”

Kanteh, who is now married with children, said he witnessed many deaths on his way to Italy.

He added: “As of now if you give me a visa, I am not going anywhere. I don’t have anything here, but I have peace.”

According to UN statistics, this year, the number of African migrants who have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert is significant. 

As of May 2024, approximately 880 migrants had died in the Mediterranean Sea. Additionally, from January 2020 to May 2024, around 1,180 migrants are known to have died while crossing the Sahara Desert. However, these numbers are likely underestimates, as many deaths go unreported.

More than 20,000 people presumed to be Africans have also died or gone missing on migratory routes beyond the African continent, according to the Missing Migrants Project data. 

However, many of the people who are listed as “Africans” are missing and presumed dead at sea, with no specific country of origin listed. 

An additional 16,000 individuals with no country or region of origin are also included worldwide, meaning that thousands of Africans who died during migration remain unidentified.

Experts have long agreed that trans-Saharan migration routes are among the most dangerous routes in the world but reliable reporting of cases remains scarce, due to both the inherent vastness of the  million square kilometre region and the lack of ability of governments across the region to collect data on countless missing persons and deaths.

Another challenging migratory context is the overseas route to the Spanish Canary Islands, where more than 3,000 deaths have been documented since 2014. 

The overseas route from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, which has claimed at least 570 lives since 2014, is also believed to be extremely hazardous, not only due to the risks of any sea crossing but also due to the presence of state and non-state armed groups which have been known to target migrants on several documented occasions.

Given the remoteness and the lack of systematic reporting and data collection along these routes, the real number of disappearances along them must, therefore, be assumed to be much higher than is indicated by the collected data. 

The data on migrant deaths on these and many other routes, including southern journeys, are highly incomplete, according to IOM Missing Migrants Project observations as well as two forthcoming studies on the continent.

The first, an ongoing survey collection exercise conducted by the IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix, asks questions about whether people in key migratory hubs in Mali and the Niger Republic have witnessed a death during their journey to cross the Sahara Desert. 

Across all monitored locations, roughly one in every 10 interviewees reported witnessing at least one death between January and May 2022. While these surveys are not representative, they present a potentially staggering picture of the volume of undocumented loss of life during trans-Saharan migration.

The second study, a household survey conducted by Ethiopia’s Central Statistics Agency in 2021, estimated that more than 51,000 Ethiopians are missing migrants, as reported by their families. 

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s engagement with an extensive network of forensic practitioners across Africa reveals that thousands of unidentified bodies enter mortuaries across Africa every year. 

Many of these are assumed to be migrants. Bodies recovered after shipwrecks or found in the desert along known migration routes are most likely to be the bodies of migrants.

In some mortuaries, such as in South Africa, the percentage of unidentified bodies can be as high as 10 per cent of body admissions, according to experts. 

But without migrants being reported missing by their families, and without their information being shared between countries, their identification is impossible, Weekend Trust gathered.

Due to the lack of data sharing, as well as the lack of systematic local, regional provincial and national reporting systems in most countries, precise numbers of missing persons and unidentified bodies are not reported. 

 

Way forward 

Edwin Melvin Snowe Junior, Co-chair of the ECOWAS joint committees on Social Affairs, Gender and Women Empowerment, Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Political Affairs, Peace, Security and African Peer Review Mechanism (MAEP), said the experiences of West African youths while trying to get to Europe through the irregular routes were touching.

“These revelations are a wake-up call to politicians to do better,” he said, urging young people to stay back home and make a difference.

He promised that the ECOWAS would continue to work towards providing opportunities for young people to become successful.

Similarly, Honourable Maimuna Ceesay, a Member of the ECOWAS Parliament from The Gambia, charged West African youths to be nationalists and stay back to help develop their respective countries.

She said the region had great laws, noting however, that implementation of regional laws on migration was poor.

Honourable Abdul Razak Tahidu, a member of Ghana’s parliamentary delegation to the ECOWAS Parliament, said Africa was suffering from bad leadership. 

He opined that if there was good leadership, the youths would not be taking the risk to get to Europe by all means.

His words: “Our problem is our leadership. The natural resources in one African country can take care of all of West Africa. Our standard of living is very low, our youths are leaving to get good jobs and make it.”

He charged leaders to wake up and care for the youths, to discourage them from migrating, while also calling on the youths to stay back and “fight for a better tomorrow.”

President of the ECOWAS Female Parliamentarians Association (ECOFEPA), Honourable Veronica Sesay, said it was heartbreaking to see youths leave West Africa for greener pastures knowing that they could die on the way.

Sesay, who is also the President of the Sierra Leone Female Parliamentary Caucus, said the number of migrants who die on the road has increased significantly in recent years.

She charged parents to stop putting pressure on their children, adding that the government also has a role to play.

She maintained that the way forward was for government institutions in the region to work together to proffer a solution to the issues driving young people away.

Jallow also has something to say: “We have to ask ourselves, those of us in policy-making what are we doing to help fight irregular migration? Irregular migration is mainly being fought by European countries because it is their problem. What are we doing as African governments to stop young people from leaving for overseas?

“Social media is responsible for the new drive to go to Europe but I will not blame the young people. I will blame the government for failing to do its part in meeting the yearnings and aspirations of these young people. We need to be very intentional when it has to do with migration.”

Jallow advised African leaders to negotiate better deals that will improve sustainable job creation to engage the young ones.

She added that it was almost impossible for Africans between the ages of 18 and 40 to acquire a legal way of entering Europe and America.

“Maybe out of every 1,000, only two people are given visas yet we open our borders to them,” Jallow said.