[ 2017-02-03 ]

Dubai in the eyes of a tourist

Over 16,000 Ghanaians migrated to the Gulf region last year
A total of 16,367 Ghanaians left the country to
the Gulf region in 2016, statistics from the Ghana
Immigration Service (GIS) has indicated.

Within the same period, 1,245 Ghanaian emigrants
were denied entry to foreign countries, while 732
others were deported for various migration
irregularities.

A source at the GIS that disclosed this to the
Daily Graphic on condition of anonymity last
Wednesday also stated that 3,059 Ghanaian
nationals returned to the country, with 441 of
them arriving from the Gulf regions.

“It is interesting to note that within 2016,
some 42 persons were also repatriated from Ghana
for engaging in some illegalities, while 209
others were denied entry into the country,” the
source added.

The highly placed source at the GIS said the
higher number of emigrants in the year under
review was labour related. According to him,
migration could be controlled through deliberate
government policies.

The source said most of the emigrants went through
crude migration routes and were often exploited by
fake recruitment agencies.

Concerns

This worrying statistics come at a time that there
is growing concerns about the ordeal most Ghanaian
emigrants go through, especially in the Gulf
region, including Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq and Saudi
Arabia.

There is a new paradigm in the irregular migration
syndrome which involves the illegal trafficking
and smuggling of people, especially females, to
the Gulf countries notably Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
Qatar and Iraq.

Between November 2015 and February 2016, an
estimated 5,400 Ghanaians left the country to the
Gulf region.

The figures show that about 4,100 of them were
females. It further showed that Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia were the destinations for more than 4,000
of them, while the remaining figure is distributed
among Iraq, Qatar, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates
(UAE), Bahrain and Oman.

Some of the migrants, who are mostly females, are
made to do caretaking and service jobs during
which some of them are subjected to all forms of
maltreatment.

“The economic conditions in the country do not
favour the teeming unemployed youth, so they
prefer to move out to seek greener pastures
against all the odds,” the source added.

Way forward

According to the same source, the way forward to
dealing with the situation is for the country’s
embassies abroad to monitor the activities of
migrants in their jurisdiction.

It is also important for the government to
strictly monitor the activities of licensed
recruitment agencies to ensure that they do not
exploit potential migrants.

“The international migration laws promote labour
migration, especially during this era of
increasing globalisation. But, as a country, we
need to enter into bilateral agreements with other
countries in terms of their migration regimes,”
the source said.

The source added that training and orientation
programmes ought to be organised for potential
migrants, since that would empower them to know
their rights and terms of agreements with
recruitment agencies.

Source - Graphic Online.com

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