Issues and recent trends in
international migration in SubSaharan Africa
Aderanti Adepoju
Introduction
GDP stagnated whilst population increased
annually at 3% and average per capita income
Historical, economic, ethnic, and political links declined by one quarter. This has resulted in
have fostered and reinforced intra-regional, the 1980s being called a ‘lost decade’ for SSA
inter-regional and international migration in because so much was unaccomplished and in
Africa, as well as between it and the colonial certain instances the gains of the previous decmetropolitan and other countries. By far the ades were severely eroded (Adepoju 1996).
largest stream of migration in Africa consists of Poverty and human deprivation intensified, leadintra-regional migrant workers, undocumented ing to a deterioration in the well-being of the
migrants, nomads, frontier workers, refugees vast majority of Africans. Today SSA is the
and, increasingly, highly
world’s poorest region,
skilled professionals. Such
where people were poorer at
Aderanti Adepoju is an economist/
migrations take place within
the end of the eighties than
demographer. He has worked at the uniconsiderably diverse politthey had been in the beginversities of Ife and Lagos, Nigeria, as
well as with the ILO, UN, UNFPA, and
ical, economic, social and
ning of the decade (United
as consultant to international organisethnic contexts. UndocuNations 1996). Migration,
ations. He is currently the Coordinator of
mented movements across
whether from a village to
UNESCO/MOST Network on Migration
frontiers, fostered by shared
the town, from the town to
Research in Africa, and Chief Executive,
culture, language and colthe capital city of a country,
Human Resources Development Centre,
Lagos, Nigeria. He is author of numerous
onial experience, noticeable
or from one country to
books and articles on population and
in west and east Africa, as
another either within or outdevelopment, migration, and refugees in
well as frontier labour
side the region, responds
Africa. Email: aadepoju얀infoweb.abs.net.
migration, blur the distincessentially to the same
tion between internal and
underlying factors—the pull
international migration, as
of opportunity and the push
well as that between
of abject poverty.
migration in regular and irregular situations in
African governments have had to reduce
the region.
the size of the public sector—the dominant
Rapid growth of population and labour employment
sector—through
retirement,
force combined with stagnant economic growth retrenchment and redundancies, and the private
rates have led to increased poverty and unem- sector followed suit. In Nigeria, for example,
ployment. At the current growth rate of 2.7% the five-year old embargo on recruitment into
in the labour force, the region now requires the public service—the largest employer—may
7.5 million new jobs merely to stabilise the just be lifted. As a result, thousands of graduemployment situation. Beginning from the ates from the country’s 50-odd universities and
1980s, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries polytechnics have been roaming the streets
experienced negative economic growth rates; without hope. The private sector, operating at
ISSJ 165/2000  UNESCO 2000. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
384
about 27% capacity, had to shed large numbers
of its workforce. Africans, whose domestic
economies have been severely disrupted by
political and economic mismanagement and
civil wars, were compelled to migrate when
political, economic, and environmental conditions fell below a critical threshold for them
to stay in their countries.
Political instability resulting from conflicts
is a strong determinant of migration in the
region. The political landscape is unstable,
unpredictable, and volatile. Dictatorial regimes
often target, harass and intimidate students,
intellectuals and union leaders, spurring emigration of professionals and others. The loss of
state capacities and breakdown of states rooted
in the precarious democratisation process, the
vacillating effects of structural adjustment programmes and human insecurity have also
prompted a variety of migratory movements,
including refugees (Adekanye 1998).
For the past two decades, SAA has been
a theatre of internecine warfare, creating major
refugee populations. During 1969–90, 17 of the
world’s recorded 43 civil wars were in Africa,
including ‘high intensity’ civil wars in Angola,
Liberia and Mozambique (Schmeidl 1996). In
Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and
Burundi, ethnic tensions played visibly
important roles in such conflicts. Sustained
refugee flows are rooted in these ethnic-based
conflicts. Conflicts between ethnic groups with
respect to access to political power and
resources have resulted in a variety of
responses including emigration, internal displacements and exile. In Rwanda, for example,
the conflict is rooted in the sharing of power
and land, a particularly scarce resource. Behind
it all is intense demographic pressure on
increasingly unproductive land: the country’s
population density ranks among the highest in
the world.
The small, unproductive landholdings,
unstable and lowly remunerated jobs have compelled farmers to seek wage-labour or engage
in non-farm activities in the towns. Work
opportunities, inadequate in both urban and
rural areas, are fairly superior in terms of educational facilities which could benefit the
migrants’ children, who constitute the bulk of
potential emigrants. This in part explains why
migration persists in the region in the face of
 UNESCO 2000.
Aderanti Adepoju
worsening urban unemployment (Adepoju
1998b).
The demographic momentum, unstable
political landscape, escalating ethnic conflicts,
persistent economic decline, severe poverty and
worsening ecological conditions have strongly
influenced the trends and patterns of international migration in the region. Such political
upheavals and economic crises have turned
immigrant-receiving countries into countries of
emigration.
Data on international migration in SSA
remain fragmentary and incomplete. The problems inherent in tracking the major forms of
migration in the region—clandestine movements
and cross-border labour migrations—also imply
that a multiplicity of sources of data would have
to be explored ingeniously. Thus, for instance,
information about the migration of highly
skilled professionals is more readily available
in the receiving countries of the North than
in the region. However, several embassies of
countries in the region keep pertinent information on their files about such migrants. These
sources of data when combined with censuses
and specialised migration surveys could considerably enrich our understanding of some of
these movements.
Major migratory trends and issues
Changes in migratory patterns, especially the
intensification of irregular and undocumented
migration as well as trafficking in migrants, can
be attributed to poverty and human deprivation,
worsening social conditions and employment
situations. Rapid population growth and unemployment tremendously strained the region’s
development process, creating the condition for
migration. Rapidly deteriorating socio-political
and economic conditions and a dismal perception of their future, have stimulated emigration.
In the prevailing circumstances, the push of
abject poverty is as compelling for many
Africans as the pull of enhanced living conditions in the countries of the North (Adepoju
1995b).
Migration as a family survival strategy Migration in Africa remains, perhaps more than
ever, very much a ‘family matter’, with even
non-migrant members of the family intimately
International migration in Sub-Saharan Africa
involved in and affected by the migration process. A family following the survival strategy
would endeavour to sponsor one or more of its
members to engage in, for example, the labour
migration system. The expectation is that the
migrant will maintain close touch with family
members left behind, through visits and
especially remittances. The family also expects
rewards from its investment in the education of
its members—usually the first male child who
has been groomed for such migration. The
migrant member feels compelled to remit a substantial proportion of the earned income regularly to support members of the family left
behind. For many families, the remittance is the
lifeline for subsistence and other expenses. In
some resource-poor countries, Senegal, for
example, household budget surveys have
revealed that dependence on emigration and
remittances is highly significant: between 30
and 70%, sometimes 80%, of family needs are
covered by incomes remitted by emigrants (ILO
1995). Perhaps the most celebrated example of
this system is the deferred pay method organised by the Republic of South Africa’s mines
for labour migrants recruited from Lesotho.
Similar findings have been reported for Mali
(Findley et al. 1995), and Burkina Faso (Cordell
et al. 1996). Some of these countries, and
especially the families of migrants, rely heavily
on migrants’ remittances, prompting governments to encourage such labour migration.
Sponsored, selective migrations are
designed to mitigate the dramatic impact of
structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) on the
family. As the SAPs bite harder and deeper,
the burden on the migrants to support other less
privileged family members is very compelling
indeed. Families are increasingly interlocked in
the web of struggle for mere survival to provide
for material needs and a future of hope for
its members (Findley 1997). In the process of
implementing the economic recovery packages
and adjustment measures, several countries have
encountered severe social and economic problems. For those still in employment, salary cuts
of between 15 and 75% have been implemented
in several countries. As governments reduced
the size of the public sector—the dominant
employment
sector—through
retirement,
retrenchment and the like and the private sector
followed suit, family heads lose their jobs and
 UNESCO 2000.
385
add to the existing pool of unemployed youths
(Adepoju 1996). Wage freezes and the removal
of subsidies from social services, drastically
affected living standards. Retrenchment across
sectors also implied that few families had sufficient working members to sustain the family
budget. Migration has, for a large majority of
families, become a coping mechanism of the
last resort.
Increasing female migration The traditional
male-dominated long-term and long-distance
migratory streams in Africa are becoming
increasingly feminised. Anecdotal evidence is
showing an increase in migration by women,
who traditionally had remained at home while
men moved around in search of paid work.
Significant proportions of females now migrate
independently to fulfil their own economic
needs rather than simply joining a husband or
other family members (Adepoju 1997). In most
African societies, social and political structures
define and limit women’s access to credit, land
and modes of production thus impinging seriously on women’s self-actualisation and autonomy. As a recent Supreme Court decision in
Zimbabwe ironically noted, women ‘should
never be considered as adults within the family,
but only as “junior males”’ (The Guardian
Newspaper, Lagos, 31 August, 1999). Since traditional political structures fail to give them
autonomy, women see emigration as a viable
avenue for escape.
For a long time, female migration was
sanctioned by a variety of customs, and made
the more difficult by job segregation and discrimination in the urban labour market. Recent
studies have shown, however, that independent
female migration directed toward attaining
economic independence through self-employment or wage-income has intensified (see
Adepoju 1997). In Côte d’Ivoire, for instance,
female migration from Burkina Faso has intensified in spite of the looming economic downturn in the traditional recipient country. The
explanation is to be found in the fact that,
generally, women cluster in the informal commerce sector, which is less affected by economic crisis than the wage-earning sector where
most male migrants are engaged, for example
as agricultural labourers, white collar workers
in the services sector and so on. Such instances
386
of female migration are indeed a manifestation
of pressure on African families – women, like
men, are migrating as a survival strategy. As
jobs become more difficult to secure and as
remittances thin out, many families increasingly
have relied on women and their farming activities (Findley 1997).
Some of the changes being observed
involve rising levels of female migration, a
large proportion of which constitutes autonomous female migration. This is not confined
within national borders: professional women
from Nigeria, Ghana, and to some extent, Tanzania now engage in international migration,
often leaving their spouses behind at home to
cater for the children. Female nurses and doctors have been recruited from Nigeria to work
in Saudi Arabia, while some have taken advantage of handsome pay packages in the USA to
work for a time there in order to accumulate
some savings to tidy over harsh economic conditions at home. Others migrate with their children to pursue their studies in the USA and the
UK, as the educational system in Nigeria has
virtually collapsed (Adepoju 1995b). To the
extent that this is a relatively new phenomenon,
it constitutes an important change in gender
roles in the region.
The new phenomenon of females migrating
internationally, leaving their husbands behind to
cater for their children, represents a turn-around
in sex roles. Until recently, migration was sanctioned only for the male members of the family.
In Southern African countries, migration of
females from rural to urban areas has intensified
although females in Lesotho, in particular, are
expected to hold fort at home to ensure that
the family retains title to land while the male
migrates in cycles to the Republic of South
Africa. Female-headed families and singleparent families have burgeoned as a result of
male migration, divorce or death of the male
head, with intense pressure on the females who
have to combine work and familial responsibilities.
Brain drain and brain gain Soon after independence, SSA countries invested heavily in
the development of human resources through
expansion of higher education. Although the
number of qualified university graduates has
increased enormously in recent years, few quali UNESCO 2000.
Aderanti Adepoju
fied Africans are able to secure places in the
region’s mushrooming universities, few of
which have the capacity for post-graduate studies, especially in the sciences, technology, and
engineering. As a result, thousands of students
annually pursue post-graduate studies in the
countries of the North and several remain at
the end of their training.
The migration of highly skilled African
manpower had its antecedent in the 1960s when
African countries engaged in unprecedented
educational expansion (Fadayomi 1996). Emigration was later spurred by a combination of
economic, social, and political factors. Uganda
led the way in both volume and rapidity of
exodus of its highly skilled manpower, as highly
educated persons and professionals were forced
to migrate to Kenya, South Africa, Botswana,
Europe, and North America. For similar
reasons, the vast majority of Somali, Ethiopian,
and Zambian graduates have been working
overseas. The situation which sparked off emigration from these countries—lack of job satisfaction and a system for rewarding efficiency,
and the deteriorating socio-economic, and political environment—have gripped Kenya where
university graduates had typically been seeking
employment for up to three years. The situation
has worsened, and the unemployed graduates
have moved in large numbers to southern
African countries, most recently to Botswana.
The bonding and clearance for travel imposed
on Tanzanian, Ugandan, and Kenyan professionals and civil servants to restrict their emigration have not significantly halted the process
(Oucho 1995).
In the 1970s, highly qualified and experienced workers in trades and professions—doctors, paramedical personnel, nurses, teachers,
lecturers, engineers, scientists, and technologists—have migrated from Zimbabwe, Zambia,
Senegal, Ghana, and Uganda to the Republic of
South Africa (RSA) and elsewhere outside
Africa. Since the 1980s, emigration to Europe,
North America and the oil-rich countries of the
Middle East intensified (Adepoju 1991a,
1991b). A World Bank study noted, for
instance, that some 23,000 qualified academic
staff are emigrating from Africa each year in
search of better working conditions due to the
state of the depressed economies in Africa. It
is estimated that about 12,000 Nigerian academ-
International migration in Sub-Saharan Africa
ics are now employed in the USA alone (World
Bank 1995). The most striking impact of economic stagnation on the African universities is
visible in the shrinking budgets allocated to
higher education, depressed academic salaries,
erosion of research grants, increasing student
unrest and so on.
Traditional labour-importing countries in
Africa (Gabon and Côte d’Ivoire) and attractive
destinations for migrants (Zimbabwe and
Nigeria) are facing both political and economic
crisis, which not only render them increasingly
incapable of attracting migrants but also spur
out-migration of their nationals. In recent years,
what was a brain drain from Africa is gradually
taking the form of brain circulation or brain
gain within African countries, the major recipients being Gabon, Botswana and Republic of
South Africa (Logan 1999).
Trafficking in migrants Africa’s youthful
population is its most viable resource. In the
coming decades, the structure of the population
will be distinctively young, growing in a situation of economic uncertainty, deprivation and
poverty unless African governments take bold
steps to revise the current economic situation.
The youth, frustrated and torn between two systems which are incapable of fulfilling their
aspirations, face the options: to be apprenticed
to a trade, to farm, or to go to school and at
the end join the queue of job seekers. For most
youths, migration, either in pursuit of higher
education or for wage employment is destined
towards the towns and thence to other countries.
For a few, such migration is of the mobility
type, but for the large majority, it is strictly for
survival. In Lesotho, for example, where few
households have access to cultivable land,
youths continue to desert the rural areas in
search of alternative employment, mainly in the
mines of the RSA.
The dramatic changes in the region’s economic fortunes have adversely undermined the
ability of families to meet the basic needs of
their members. One emerging consequence is
the weakening and disintegration of family control on the youth that roam the street, seeking
without success for months even a lowly paid
job. In desperation, most of these youths fall
easy prey to scams and risk their lives during
the hazardous journey to the countries of the
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387
North, with the assistance of labour traffickers
and bogus agencies, in search of the illusory
green pastures.
Cases of trafficking in illegal migrants,
hitherto a rare phenomenon, is on the increase
as young persons are now involved in daredevil ventures to gain entry into Europe. Individual stowaways engage in life-threatening
ventures hidden on board ships to southern
Europe, and recently as far as East Asia.
Unscrupulous agents also exploit desperate
youths with promises of passages from West
Africa to Italy, Spain and France. Most of
these youths are stranded in Dakar; others who
find their way through are apprehended and
deported on arrival or soon afterwards. In May
1996, 200 Kenyans were stranded on arrival
in Saudi Arabia after being tricked by traffickers who promised them lucrative jobs
(Adepoju 1996). Newspapers have also
reported incidences of trafficking in children
and young girls from Southeast Nigeria to
Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. In July this
year, a Togolese woman was intercepted with
eight children being smuggled to work on Côte
d’Ivoire’s farms and plantation. A newspaper
report in Nigeria chronicled cases of young
boys and girls being trafficked to work in
Gabon. According to the report, the Nigerian
Immigration Services rescued 51 children
being ferried to Gabon in March 1994. In July
1996, 73 teenagers were intercepted from traffickers. The figure rose to 150 in January and
86 in February 1997. In August 1999, 33 children were intercepted when their rickety boat
capsized en route to Gabon (The Guardian
Newspaper, Lagos 7 August, 1999).
In late May 1999, hundreds of Somalis
paid about $4,000 each to scams to be shipped
in boats illegally to Australia. The scams
reportedly included Australians. This is not an
isolated incident. Soon afterwards, another
group of Somalis was captured travelling by
rickety boats to Saudi Arabia via Yemen. In
mid August, about 20 young men and women
were intercepted at the Nigeria–Benin border,
with fake documentation, on their way to Spain
via Morocco. They claimed to have paid about
N70,000 each to fraudsters to secure passports
and documents for the journey in a country
where the minimum pay for public sector workers is N3,000 (US$32) per month.
388
Aderanti Adepoju
Waiting for the bus in Mwanza, Malawi, to visit relatives in Milange, Mozambique. Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas
/ Contact Press Images
Early in August 1999, two young Guinean
stowaway boys aged 14 and 15, carried with
them a letter, in French, which read
and crushed in the landing gear of the Belgian
aircraft, where they had stowed away, on arrival
in Brussels.
Excellencies, sirs, members and officials of Europe. We
have the honourable pleasure and great confidence to
write you this letter to tell you of the objective of our
voyage and of our suffering, we, the children of Africa.
We appeal to your kindness and solidarity to come to
the rescue of Africa. Help us, we are suffering enormously. Help us—we have war, disease, not enough to
eat. There are schools, but a great lack of education, of
teaching . . . We young Africans are asking you for a
large and effective organisation to bring about real progress in Africa. We are appealing to you for the love
of your beautiful continent, for the feelings you have
for your own people, your family and especially the
affinity and love of your children. If you see that we have
sacrificed ourselves and risked our lives, it is because we
are suffering too much in Africa and that we need for
you to fight against our poverty and the war in Africa.
Regional economic unions and
labour mobility
The last sentence was indeed a premonition. They never survived the journey—the
bodies of the two young boys were found frozen
 UNESCO 2000.
The formation of sub-regional economic unions
to some extent simulated the kind of homogeneous societies that once existed in the subregions. Understandably, in the case of the
Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS), the protocol on Free Movement of
Persons was the first to be ratified and
implemented, once again ushering in an era
of free movement of citizens within member
countries. These unions include the Customs
and Economic Union of Central Africa founded
in 1964; the East African Community (EAC),
set up in 1967 by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania;
the Economic Community of West African
International migration in Sub-Saharan Africa
States (ECOWAS), founded in 1975 to enhance
free trade and facilitate free movement of factors of production in the 16 member states;
the Economic Community of the Great Lakes
(CEPGL), set up in 1976 and the Economic
Community of West Africa, established in 1977.
Others are the Preferential Trade Area (PTA)
for Eastern and Southern Africa created in
1981; the Common Market for Eastern and
Southern African (COMESA) founded in 1994
as successor to the PTA; the Southern African
Development
Co-ordination
Conference
(SADCC) established in 1980 and later replaced
by South African Development Community and
the Small Island States in Africa (otherwise
called Indian Ocean Commission).
In most cases, these economic unions are
dominated by the economies of a single country,
and movements of persons have been directed
to a limited number of countries within the
unions—Republic of South Africa in SADC,
Gabon in UDEAC, Côte d’Ivoire in CEAO,
Nigeria in ECOWAS and Congo in CEPGL.
Although the protocols of some regional organisations include the free movement of persons,
residence and establishment, these are rarely
implemented. Only ECOWAS has, to a large
extent, implemented the protocol on free movement of persons but remains lukewarm about
the right of residence and establishment (see
Adepoju 1998a, Afolayan 1998).
Sub-regional and regional bilateral and
multilateral cooperation unions have the potential to greatly influence the flow of labour
migration. Sub-regional economic unions which
provide in their agreements for the free flow of
skilled labour and rights of establishment in
member countries, could facilitate intra-regional
labour mobility and promote self-reliant development in the region. Economic integration in
the region offers a long-term prospect for stimulating intra-regional labour mobility. The persistent political unrest and the fragmented, weak
national economies make regional and subregional economic groupings most pertinent.
The ratification of the memorandum to set up
an African Common Market by the year 2025
is a landmark in the road to an all-African
regional integration. Since many countries are
ambivalent to the principle of free movement
and are reluctant to modify domestic laws and
administrative practices, it is necessary to har UNESCO 2000.
389
monise national laws which conflict with
regional and sub-regional treaties. Efforts at
promoting regional integration and cooperation
must also address the right of residence and
establishment of migrants and obligations of the
host countries.
Diversifying destinations of
migration
The unstable economic situation provoked different patterns of migration, traditionally
directed to the cities, but increasingly to other
countries. At the same time, the global economic downturn and the political and economic
constraints on international migration in traditional recipient countries have taxed the
ingenuity of emigrants forcing them to increasingly diversify migration destinations (Findley
1997). In recent years, African migrations have
become more varied and spontaneous; many
who migrate no longer adhere to the classical
labour migration patterns and they also explore
a much wider set of destinations. The unstable
economic situation in Africa has drawn more
people into circular or temporary migration to
a variety of alternative destinations, including
those with limited political or economic links
with countries of emigration. As the economic
slump reduced employment opportunities within
the region, the Gulf States became and remain
particularly attractive to highly skilled professionals. But these countries are showing
signs of economic depression in recent years.
Consequently the lure of Botswana and the
Republic of South Africa (RSA) waxes strong.
Pressured to leave their countries by the uncertain economic conditions, highly skilled professionals have found the new RSA, and the
booming economy of Botswana, attractive alternatives to Europe, the USA and the Gulf States
(Adepoju 1995a, 1995b).
In the Sahel, for instance, traditional seasonal and circulatory migration patterns have
given way to more diverse movements with
more complex migrant itineraries (Findley
1997). Emigrants from Mali and Burkina Faso
to France, Cote d’Ivoire and Gabon, from Senegal to France and from Egypt to the Gulf
States, and in some cases, immigrants from
neighbouring countries have occupied positions
vacated by nationals of the receiving countries
390
who had emigrated abroad. Often the result is
a step-wise migration pattern from rural areas
first to the cities and then outside the country.
These migrants have developed complex strategies for entering a country and for finding
work. Migration to other African countries is
also becoming increasingly flexible in the timing of moves and selection of destinations, as
migrants regard cross-border movements simply
as fundamentally the same as internal migration.
From labour to commercial migration For
long, Malians have mainly migrated to France
to engage in menial work, as labour migrants.
This is changing. A large proportion of Senegalese migrants in Cote d’Ivoire, Marseilles
in France, and in Rome can be classified as
commercial migrants. Most are exploring nonconventional destinations with no linguistic, cultural and colonial ties: initially to Zambia, and
when the economy of that country collapsed,
increasingly to RSA soon after the demise of
the apartheid regime there. They are also moving to Italy, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, and
Spain (Adepoju 1995b).
Finding the situation of immigrants in Europe increasingly intolerable, with local residents
and the media becoming increasingly apprehensive and xenophobic, and anti-immigration
political parties increasingly vocal and popular,
some immigrants have crossed over the Atlantic
to the USA in search of greener pastures,
mainly as petty traders. The Sufi brotherhood
used to work the peanut basin in Senegal when
peanut was the country’s primary cash crop. As
the soil became depleted, these farmers from
Senegal began to emigrate, initially to France
and then in the 1980s to the USA where they
set up petty commerce. As the first francophone
Africans to arrive ‘en masse’ in New York in
the early 1980s (Ebin 1996), they started as
street vendors, survived the city administration’s
harassment and established themselves in a
particular neighbourhood of New York. Once
established, they attracted other immigrants.
The lure of Southern Africa The opening up
of the Republic of South Africa in 1994 was
quickly followed by an influx of migrants from
various parts of the region: Nigeria, Senegal,
Sierra Leone, Zaire, Kenya, and Uganda. Some
of the nationals of these countries had earlier
 UNESCO 2000.
Aderanti Adepoju
entered the Republic’s then nominally independent homelands, clandestinely during the
period of apartheid. The numbers were small
and the immigrants remained underground.
They were mostly skilled professionals—teachers, university professors, doctors, lawyers,
nurses, and engineers, a situation that set them
aside from the traditional immigrants from the
satellite states of Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana,
Malawi, and Mozambique, whose nationals
were mostly unskilled mine workers and farm
labourers. Zairean traders and students followed
in the 1991–94 period as their country’s economy, polity and society virtually collapsed. The
post-apartheid waves of immigrants from Senegal, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and so on consisted
mostly of street vendors and traders desirous to
tap the relatively affluent market of the new
Republic (Bouillon 1996).
The black population latter vented their
anger against immigrants from other African
countries, with the local population and some
politicians calling for the arrest and deportation
of so-called illegal immigrants—fellow
Africans including some from countries that
had previously sheltered South African freedom fighters, especially members of the ruling
ANC party. In 1994, the new government
expelled about 91,000 illegal immigrants
mostly Mozambicans (75%). Others came from
Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, and Zambia.
This was a dramatic increase over the number
of illegal aliens expelled under apartheid rule
in the previous three years (293 in 1990 and
83,109 in 1992). By 1996, the number of
deportation of illegal immigrants rose to
181,230, up from 157,695 in 1995. Thousands
of the estimated 300,000 Zimbabweans living
in South Africa illegally are deported every
month (Mfono 1998).
In 1994, the government initiated plans in
conjunction with the National Union of Mine
Workers to grant voting rights at local and
national elections, and later citizenship to
migrant workers. Residence status was granted
to 90,000 former Mozambican refugees, and
about 124,000 nationals of SADC countries,
especially from Lesotho, who had been living
in the country since 1986. Another 51,000
miners were also exempted from the provisions
of the 1996 Aliens Control Act (Milazi 1995).
By the end of August 1999, about 300,000
International migration in Sub-Saharan Africa
Mozambican immigrants and refugees who
entered the country between 1985 and 1992 will
be granted permanent residency.
The Green Paper on International Migration
identifies three types of immigrants: permanent
migrants; immigrants with skills; and refugees
seeking asylum. Work permits granted to immigrants set limits to the length of stay of immigrants in the country. Immigrants are accused of
causing unemployment among nationals, frustrating efforts of trade unions to achieve realistic
wages for the workers; immigrants are also
scapegoats for crime. The xenophobic reaction
against foreigners can be traced to South Africa’s
culture of violence between black and white,
cultivated and nurtured during the apartheid era.
It is obvious that the country sorely needs highly
skilled professionals to replace whites who emigrated as crime intensified, and more so since a
whole generation of black nationals lack skills
required for the technological age and are therefore unemployable. At present, only 7% of
young South Africans who complete their education find work and an estimated 40% of the
country’s workforce, mostly black, are currently
unemployed, up from 30% in 1980. As a result
of sluggish economic growth, resulting from
years of economic sanction, employment in both
the public and private sectors has contracted
drastically. Economic growth of 7% would be
required merely to create jobs for the new school
graduates. Rationalisation policies and localisation of specific employment opportunities would
surely reduce the demand for foreign workers.
Botswana has become a major migrationreceiving country. A prosperous, politically
stable country, whose economy has recorded a
rapid and steady growth over the past decade,
it has attracted highly skilled professionals from
Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Kenya.
Most of these work in the private sector and
the University, taking advantage of the relaxed
laws on residence and entry introduced in the
early 1990s. The policy of localisation of
employment, especially in the education sector,
implies replacing expatriates at the University,
a situation that creates an environment of job
insecurity for foreigners.
The changing dynamics of traditional recipient
countries A small and rich country, Gabon
relies on contract labour and immigrants to sup UNESCO 2000.
391
plement the domestic labour force. Most immigrants are from Mali, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria,
Senegal, Benin, Cameroon, and Togo. About a
quarter of the wage earners are expatriates from
Africa and Europe. In recent years, thousands of
immigrants entered Gabon from Burundi,
Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and
Congo under irregular situations to look for
work. The war and political instability in these
countries forced thousands to migrate to Gabon
where they hope to secure a better life and
greater security. However, unemployment is
increasingly posing a challenge, prompting the
government to adopt a policy of localising
employment opportunities in response to the
increasing unemployment rate of about 20%
among the economically active population. In
1991, a presidential decree was issued to safeguard jobs for nationals in response to rising
urban unemployment. In pursuance of the policy
of ‘Gabonising’ the labour force, in September
1994, the Government enacted laws that required
foreigners to register, pay residence fees or leave
the country by the middle of February 1995. At
the end of the deadline, about 55,000 foreign
nationals were expelled while 15,000 legalised
their residency (Le Courier, 1997).
Côte d’Ivoire has always been a major
country of immigration in the region as a result
of its vast and varied natural resource endowment, diversified and modernised export agriculture and plantation economy. The country’s
domestic labour force is small, and about a
quarter of its wage-labour force are foreigners.
The country’s first post-independent president,
ignoring the arbitrary borders drawn by colonial powers encouraged immigration from the
country’s poor neighbours. Immigrants from
Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal,
Ghana flooded the plantations clandestinely
and did menial jobs which the local population
despised. Immigrants made up 17% of the total
population in 1965, 22% in 1975, 28% in 1988,
and 25% in 1993. By 1995, there were 4
million immigrants out of a population of 14
million (Toure 1998). The economic downturn
and increasing unemployment among young
nationals informed the recent government policy to register and issue special identity cards
to foreigners; a development widely viewed as
aimed at deporting (now classified) illegal
immigrants.
392
Refugees Africa’s refugee situation has aptly
been described as a human tragedy, for the
region has experienced acute refugee problems
of great magnitude and complexity. SubSaharan Africa (SSA) is the poorest of all
regions, and its refugees come from and settle
in countries designated as the least developed
in the world, plagued with problems of famine,
war, drought, and political instability. Seventeen
SSA countries are torn by civil conflict,
resulting in more than 6 million people as refugees and another 17 million displaced within
their countries (Adedeji 1999).
The refugee situation in the region is
unique in several important respects. It is fluid
and highly unpredictable: while old problems
that gave rise to refugees are being solved, as
in Mozambique, new ones surface and intensify the refugee crisis as in Liberia, Rwanda,
Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau. Secondly,
countries that generate large numbers of refugees also provide asylum for refugees from
neighbouring countries. Generally these refugees are drawn from the poorest regions and
seek refuge in equally poor countries within
the region. Virtually all refugees are confined
to the region and are, in the first instance,
assisted by fellow Africans—a process facilitated by ethnic and kinship ties between the
refugees and people in the countries of asylum.
This traditional hospitality has now been taxed
to the limit.
Over the past few years new refugeegenerating countries have been added to the list
(Liberia, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone). Nothing
seems to parallel the recent refugee situation
in Rwanda caused by the barbaric carnage and
seemingly organised genocide. An estimated 1
million Rwandan refugees were recorded in various parts of Zaire, Tanzania, even Burundi. The
traditional sources of refugees—Eritrea, Sudan,
Ethiopia, and Somalia—continue to generate
additional refugees in the thousands. Malawi, a
very poor country, emerged as a leading country
of asylum, with 910,000 refugees (one-tenth of
its population) from Mozambique.
Not all people cross national frontiers in
search of safe havens: many fleeing from persecution and violence, natural disaster, drought,
ecological problems and internal conflict have
in fact been displaced within their own coun UNESCO 2000.
Aderanti Adepoju
tries. These include children, women, and old
persons, mostly of rural background.
Prospects for the next millennium
Several factors point to the possibility that emigration from SSA may be on the increase in
the next millennium. As political and economic
crises intensify, refugee flows and undocumented migration will increase in both magnitude and impact. Structural adjustment and the
current economic downturn will also accelerate
emigration. Migration in irregular situations will
become more visible in the region. As poverty,
unemployment and socio-economic insecurity
intensify, some of the migration that would
otherwise take place internally is likely to
become replacement migration in urban areas
and sequentially emerge as undocumented
migration across borders to relatively more
prosperous countries.
In SSA, more than any other region, economic recovery and improved living conditions
and survival for the poor depend crucially on
the successful resolution of the ongoing economic malaise without which effective and sustainable development is a mirage. But this goal
is not in sight. But there can be no meaningful
development in conditions of conflict. As
experience shows for several countries in the
region, the absence of peace and stability discourages investment and leads to capital flight;
lack of economic alternatives prompts emigration of all kinds, both regular and irregular.
A familiar recommendation to develop
alternatives to migration in the source countries
is worth revisiting: help poorer countries stimulate domestic employment. The persistent economic difficulties in SSA spur additional
migrants and the huge economic differentials
between countries of the region and those of
the North lure many more migrants there in
spite of the strict restrictive entry requirements
and tightened entry controls. Experience shows
that wherever such spectacular differentials
exist, migratory flows, in regular but increasingly in irregular situations, are directed from
the poorer impoverished countries to the more
affluent societies. Within the region, for
example, per capita income in the RSA is several times that of Mozambique, and even when
electric barbed fences are erected along the bor-
International migration in sub-Saharan Africa
ders between the two countries, desperate
migrants continue to attempt illegal entry into
the RSA.
The recent tragic event of the two young
boys, narrated above, attests to the urgency of
taking action to redress the situation in poor
African countries. The Belgian minister of
Foreign Affairs was so moved by the letter that
he promised to send copies to his European
counterparts. The Secretary of State for Cooperation and Development said the letter ‘confirms the situation of distress in which so many
young Africans find themselves’. The Interior
Minister noted that ‘It is an extremely moving
appeal for us to exercise our responsibilities for
the men and women who live on the African
continent’. The Belgian government bore the
cost of repatriating the bodies, which were
given a hero’s welcome in Conakry (Guardian
Newspaper, Lagos 5 August, 1999).
The demographic, economic and political
situations in the region signal the possibility of
increased migration in the years ahead in
response
to
worsening
unemployment,
inequality, and poverty. As a large number of
workers have been retrenched from public and
private formal sectors, the ability of the informal sector to absorb excess labour has been
stretched to the limit. The provision of productive employment for millions of educated
youth is a major challenge for the next millennium. These youths will scramble for work in
the formal sector, or join the lengthening queue
of potential emigrants, ready to migrate clandestinely to do any kind of odd jobs anywhere,
but increasingly outside of their countries. There
is also the need to pay more attention to the
education of the male child in countries like
Lesotho. Traditionally girls remained in school
while boys prepared for work in the mines; now
393
that unskilled employment for male labourers
in South Africa is on the decline, the situation
has changed.
As economic conditions worsened and
unemployment among nationals in the receiving
countries intensified, immigrants have been targets for expulsion. Illegal migrants have been
rounded-up and deported from Gabon and the
RSA in recent months. Consequently clandestine
migrants increasingly find their way through
intermediate countries to new destinations—
southern Europe, USA, the Middle East and
Asia. African countries should provide their
nationals with adequate information regarding
rules and regulations guiding entry, residence and
employment abroad, following the examples of
Senegal and Mali which now have information
and counselling units within their respective ministries dealing with emigration matters.
In the next decade, labour migration, in
both regular and irregular situations, will intensify if the economic situations of several of the
countries of the region, and living conditions
of their people, continue to deteriorate. In like
manner, brain circulation and female migration
will accelerate from poorer to more prosperous,
but labour-short countries in the region,
especially Gabon, Botswana, and the RSA. The
unstable political situation, ethnic conflicts and
civil wars may also generate refugees and
internally displaced persons in droves. However,
developments at the political and economic
spheres in Ghana and Uganda have attracted
the return of emigrants and new immigrants.
Ongoing efforts to revive the economic and
political situation in Nigeria have started to
attract a wave of return migration of professionals and asylum seekers who fled the dictatorial regimes of the military. Other countries
may follow these examples.
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