8
September 2003
(Luan
Qorraj)
It is believed that out of an estimated 2.5 million
Kosovars, at least half a million people, or one fifth of the general
population, live abroad. The trend of moving outside the country in order to
secure a better living started in the 60’s – and reached its height during the
90’s – when people were fleeing the country in order to avoid being drafted in
the Yugoslav army or because of constant repression by the regime.
Things have changed since then, but then again, as the
French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And although a
large number of people have returned, there is a constant stream of people
trying to leave the country. This time their reason is pure survival – the
tough economic situation at home combined with bleak future prospects leave
many feeling they don’t have any other choice.
And like their counterparts in poor countries, they take desperate
measures to leave their homeland.
But Western Europe has made it difficult, if not impossible
for would-be immigrants and asylum seekers – and illegal channels are often the
only way to get past the stringent anti-immigration laws. This inevitably puts
them in the hands of organized traffickers who have made a fine art of this
sordid trade in people. This is a multi-million dollar business with
traffickers charging huge sums of money to smuggle people into Western
Europe.
More often than not, they
do not deliver what they have promised, and even if they do, there’s little
guarantee that their clients or victims actually reach their destination. Every
few months another story of a boat overloaded with illegal immigrants capsizing
off the coast of Italy or Greece, or found asphyxiated in the back of a truck
and yet the stream of illegal immigrants continues unabated.
Hajredin Ferataj from the International Organization of
Migration, IOM, says that he is in contact with a lot of people who have been
sent back after trying illegal channels. These people are totally disillusioned
he says and are now looking for legal channels of leaving the country:
Hajredin Ferataj: the problem is the heavy
economic situation; unemployment is one of the biggest factors that has made
these people interested in legal migration, not illegal since they have been
very disappointed by illegal migration. They have lost a lot to the organized
networks, and not just money, some of them lost family members.
Despite the horrific
stories heard from people who have tried clandestine immigration, there are all
too many who still believe that the streets of the West are paved with gold.
And therefore willing to risk almost anything in order to get away. But, warns
Mary Cuneen from the pressure group Anti-Slavery International, people who
decide to try illegal migration face more risks than just the ones associated
with being caught by the border guards:
Mary Cuneen: If the people are trafficked
then their dreams do not come true since there is deception or coercion, which
leads those people to be in a position of forced labor or prostitution or other
sectors of the labor market, for example domestic service, or in the
agricultural sector or other sectors. But the element in common of all those is
that it is forced labor.
The ones who do make it
to their destination without being caught, or even killed by border guards, she
adds, usually end up working long hours for miserable wages. In other words,
since they are illegally in the country, they enjoy no rights and that is
something their employers take advantage of to the maximum.
Mary Cuneen: trafficked people are more
likely to work in the private sectors where they are forced underground – to be
hidden- where there is no ground state intervention or control because clearly
it is easier for people to operate illegally in those sectors.
Hajredin Ferataj: almost every day we have tens
of people who come to IOM asking about migration- but they are the ones
interested in legal migration. But, like I said before, because of the
unsettled status of Kosovo, only Switzerland and Germany give visas here. For
all other places they have to travel to Albania or Macedonia where there may be
problems with these things.
Fortress Europe, as it is
often referred to now, is trying to keep its doors firmly locked for most
people, except from those categories deemed useful for western economies. Mary
Cuneen from Anti-Slavery International says that one of the big problems is
that there isn’t a unified policy on what should be done with illegal
immigrants.
Mary Cuneen: there isn’t a comprehensive
European-wide anti-trafficking legislation yet. Most countries have a different
form of trafficking legislation or, in the case of the UK; there isn’t
legislation yet. And there are no comprehensive protection measures Europe wide
– there ‘s a directive that’s being proposed, a short-term residence- planned
directive- to give the trafficked persons the right to stay, which is being
proposed by the European governments and those have not yet been fully
accepted.
That does it for this
edition of UNMIK ON AIR. Thanks for listening.