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Despite the risk, they migrate with a common aspiration, hopes of good jobs and better lives for themselves and their families
Despite the risk, they migrate with a common aspiration, hopes of good jobs and better lives for themselves and their families

Youth migration puts young Ghanaian migrants at risk

Every week in the Brong Ahafo Region (one of Ghana’s major food baskets), vehicles loaded with men between 18 and 40 years embark on a journey to Europe and other advanced countries in search of greener pastures.

Many of them, mostly the younger men, hope to reach Europe, while others head for more prosperous countries in Africa. Irrespective of their final destination, they have common aspiration; hopes of good jobs and better lives for themselves and the families they leave behind.

Living conditions
In 2014, Kofi Twum, who was then only 18 and had lost his father at an early age, joined a group of 35 young men on a journey through the Sahara Desert to Libya, where they were scheduled to take a boat to Europe.

However, after travelling on a crowded boat out of Libya on his third attempt to cross the Mediterranean, he was arrested and deported to Ghana. He arrived empty-handed. Twum, now a street preacher in his 30s, tells Africa Renewal that he still hopes to make it to Europe one day, this time by some other route.

Three of his fellow travellers who couldn’t continue walking, died.

He said, “These were people I knew. We travelled together from Nkoronza. I called their families later from Tripoli to inform them.”

Twum’s story is all too common in the Brong Ahafo Region, with echoes across Ghana and other sub-Saharan African countries.

Migrants in Libya
During the 2011 Libyan crisis and the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, more than 18,000 Ghanaian migrants in Libya were evacuated, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) office in Ghana. The actual number of returnees, however, could be higher as some migrants managed to get out of Libya on their own before the crisis worsened.

The majority of the returnees were sent back to the Brong Ahafo Region, from where they came, according to the IOM, which supported the Ghanaian government in evacuating its stranded nationals.

For many families in Brong Ahafo, having a relative in Europe confers prestige and the prospect of remittances. “Every household hopes to have someone in Europe,” says Walter Kwao-Anati, the Director of Migration at Ghana’s Ministry of the Interior.

Most Ghanaian migrants trying to reach Europe via Libya go through Burkina Faso to Agadez, Niger. From there they join others from West Africa and other areas who are fleeing conflict and persecution.

Services of middlemen
With the services of middlemen, they travel on overloaded trucks in convoys and part of the way on foot through the Sahara Desert to the Borkou region near the Libyan border. It’s a death-ridden experience. Many die from exhaustion and dehydration.

Migration is not a new phenomenon in Africa. Around the 1970s and 1980s, most Ghanaian migrants moved to neighbouring countries such as Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. In recent years, however, irregular migration—travelling without documentation and through unapproved routes—from sub-Saharan Africa towards Europe has substantially increased.

Ghana, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer (behind Côte d’Ivoire), is also endowed with many natural resources—precious metals such as gold and silver, as well as diamonds, bauxite, cocoa, timber and crude oil.

When the country started crude oil production in commercial quantities in 2011, many were hopeful of better lives. That year, the country’s economy grew at a record high of 15 per cent, the fastest rate in the world, according to the IMF.

At the end of 2012, declining productivity at one of the country’s largest oil projects, the Jubilee Oilfield, led to a decline in revenues for the government, which had budgeted for oil revenue of more than $650 million. The corresponding shortfall was more than $410 million.

Dashed hopes
Ghana, once touted as an African success story, has now turned to the IMF for support. Today the country’s ballooning debt, coupled with high interest payments, remains a source of concern.

Ghana’s vast resources have not translated into better lives for a majority of the people. Kofi Obeng has been among that majority. He comes from the Eastern Region—an area endowed with diamonds, gold and other mineral resources that Ghana exports.

Factors
In a joint interview with Africa Renewal, Kazumi Nakamura and Kojo Wilmot of the IOM office in Ghana blamed the surge in youth migration on an inadequate educational system, among other factors.

“There is a mismatch between the educational system and the job market, leaving a huge skills gap,” noted Nakamura who manages the Ghana Integrated Migration Management Approach (GIMMA) project, a three-year initiative intended to contribute to the government’s efforts to develop a holistic approach to the effective management of migration.

Mr Wilmot said while conflicts and changes in the weather pattern in northern Ghana were influencing internal migration, unemployment among the youth was largely responsible for external migration. “Many are coming out of school with no jobs,” he said.

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