“This morning they sang their song and I cried… I was really touched because I can’t imagine the kind of suffering, they went through. So, I believe everyone here today has learnt something.”
These are the words of Cynthia, a university student who participated in a theatre drama written by returnees about the harrowing tales of migrants, in Benin City, earlier this year.
These words touched me. As the Chief of Mission of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Nigeria, I’ve seen thousands of young migrants returning home who open up about the reasons they left, the unspeakable abuses they suffered abroad and the icy reception they sometimes get back home.
Migration is the megatrend of our time; it is part of everyday public debate. Yet, the plight of migrants often seems to evade our attention. In some cases, these migrants are even labelled as criminals and illegals, perhaps due to ignorance or malice, or both.
Cynthia’s disbelief is understandable. Often times, migrants’ voices in Nigeria remain unheard by their very neighbors, and many migrants are met with closed doors when they return empty-handed.
In Benin City, the challenges, but also the potential, of reintegrating returnees into society are laid bare. According to our figures, most Nigerians returning home come from Edo (40 per cent) and Delta (13 per cent) states. They are young women and men between the ages of 18 and 35, who carry skills and knowledge, which they have acquired before their departure or along their migration journey.
So, on this International Migrants Day, we must ask ourselves how we can help pave the way for these migrants to participate in the development of this great country, how we can harness their talents and courage, and how we can ensure that they are embraced by their communities.
Achieving economic self-sufficiency is essential. But there can never be sustainable reintegration for these young returnees if they are not welcomed and accepted. Knowledge, empathy and support are therefore, key components of our joint efforts. Initiatives such as the community theatre in Benin cut across all three of them. The open-air performances brought together thousands of individuals during a seven-month period who gathered to raise awareness about the deception, abuse and exploitation suffered by migrants along their journeys.
Community-centred sports and cultural activities help to dispel some of the negative stereotypes branded on the returnees, while serving as a platform for them to articulate the unfiltered accounts of their journeys in an engaging way. People come for the entertainment, but they leave with knowledge to spread among their peers.
We hope that this will, in turn, bolster empathy within those migrant-prone communities which will further strengthen the social bonds that have been severed. Returnees need the trust of their communities to kick start businesses, resume their education or reestablish their social lives back home.
We are starting to see the gains of empowering and employing returnees. Not long ago, a returnee named Matthew started a fish-farming business in Benin, but it wasn’t enough for him to pay his bills. So, he searched for help within his community. At church, Matthew met Adama, an event planner. Adama needed an extra hand, so he hired Matthew to work in her ice block business. Their business is thriving, and Matthew has now taken an apprentice under his wing.
We also need to explore innovative ways to help returnees put their skills to use – and acquire new ones. Recently, we partnered with Google to train them on how to build their online presence and improve their search campaigns and job-seeking skills online. The digital skills training also targets the ones who didn’t leave, namely young Nigerians who might be lured by unscrupulous smugglers due to lack of opportunities at home. The training is thus, another opportunity for returnees and non-migrants to get to know each other.
The initiative complements the traditional business skills training we provide to returnees in partnership with local NGOs in Edo and Lagos states. All training sessions are an opportunity for returnees to meet one another and allow them to share their experiences and pool together their in-kind assistance, skills, and resources to establish more sustainable businesses.
Managing migration for the benefit of all can be a weighty endeavor, so we must carry it together. It requires partnerships between government, intergovernmental organizations like IOM, NGOs and local leaders.
This year, the Nigerian Federal Government is taking a decisive step towards realizing the commitments of the Global Compact for Migration. The Compact is the first-ever global agreement on a common approach to international migration in all its dimensions, and in Nigeria it will depend on the joint efforts of all relevant sectors including labour, immigration, security, health, and social development, to name a few.
One of the objectives of the Global Compact is to achieve migrants’ full inclusion and social cohesion. This will only be realized by promoting the empowerment of migrants to become full members of our societies and highlight their positive contributions.
As a signatory of the Compact, Nigeria has committed to ensuring that its nationals are duly received and readmitted, as well as creating conducive conditions for personal safety, economic empowerment, inclusion and social cohesion in communities to ensure that reintegration of Nigerian migrants is sustainable.
Yesterday, I proudly joined the National Migration Dialogue (NMD) organized by the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and IDPs (NCFRMI), and I was heartened to see that the focus of this year’s event was on ‘Localizing the Global Compact For Safe, Orderly And Regular Migration: Developing A National Implementation Action Plan’.
The event sparked much-needed discussions on the way forward for migration management in Nigeria. We need to add to these discussions the voices of returnees and the people who welcome them back. And I trust we’ll be ready to listen.
Frantz Celestin, IOM Nigeria Chief of Mission, writes from Abuja
