RIGHT GROUPS NARRATE ORDEALS OF MIGRANTS IN WEST, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA -- CALL FOR MORE SUPPORT FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Justice Without Borders for Migrants (JWBM) has convened a meeting in Banjul recently that gave opportunities for human rights groups engaged in the course for migrants rights to voice out their commitments with stakeholders in their defense of fundamental human rights of migrants.

JWBM is a multinational bloc that seeks to combat violations of migrants’ rights linked to deportations through transnational action that combines utilization of legal mechanisms, advocacy, and documentation and reporting of abuses, capacity building, and strengthening collaborations and communication between partners.

Migrants in Libya

However, JWBM project also aims to defense the fundamental human rights of migrants when they are deported, and to develop an advocacy scheme in favor of policy changes in countries that are involved in numerous issues surrounding asymmetrical immigration. Since its inception, the agency has weathered so many storms in West Africa and Africa in general.

Speaking to Gambian journalists at a tete-a-tete meeting, the President of Malian Association of Displaced People who also doubled as the president of JWB said, the importance of having a non-governmental organization advocating for the rights of migrants could not be over-emphasised, saying, his agency is open to all aspiring and committed individuals or agencies.

However, he maintained that even Member States that have ratified the ECOWAS protocols and other international laws that called for the protection of the rights of migrants workers and travelers, have fallen under the net of human right violators. “The human rights violations suffered by deported African migrants were committed in Africa [by Africans],” he adds.

Despite commitments made by Member States of the African Union to promote the respect of the human rights guaranteed by the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and other international legal instruments on the protection of human rights ratified by these States, a number of African States blatantly violates rights of African migrants who have settled in their respective territories, he said.

Alassan Dicko, also a member of the Malian Association of Displaced People, said his country has witnessed over the past years the plights of migrants trekking to other parts of Africa or Europe to seek for greener pastures. He said most of the human rights violations occurred between the borders of Mali and other countries.
He explained that migrants have also suffered in the borders between Mali and Mauritania; and further attributed the general plight of migrants in Africa to racism, saying, “And the act seriously constitutes the violation of human rights”.
Aboubacry Mbodi and Sadikh Niass respectively, both representative of ‘Recontre Africaine pour la Defense des Driotes de L’Homme (RADDHO)’ – based in Dakar – added their voice to the situations of migrants in Africa.

Alioune TINE -- RADDHO President

For Mr Niass, youth unemployment and lack of paying considerable efforts to development of rural Senegal, has become a factor contributing to migrations to other parts of the world. Whilst he said migration from Senegal is booming, he also highlights that RADDHO has amongst other things, engaged stakeholders in capacity building workshops to sensitise them on their rights.

Francis Ekwere from the Nigerian Bar Association Human Right Institute also expressed sentiments of the predicaments faced by Nigerian migrants in other countries. He stated that about 350 Nigerians have been deported from Libya, and more seriously, these people’s rights were blatantly abused.

The Association Mauritanienne des Droits de l’Homme (AMDH), Groupe antiraciste d'accompagnement et de défense des étrangers et migrants (GADEM), Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiado (CEAR), and La Cimade, all are NGOs in the crusade against the discrimination of migrants and deported persons.