From the way Western media and politicians talk about migration, you’d never guess that only 30% of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants are heading for the Global North. Instead, most people on the move like this are travelling from one country in the Global South to another.
Why does this get so little coverage? What are the most popular destinations for migrants in the Global South? Do migrants moving South to South face the same problems as those headed North: harassment at border crossings, problems with documentation and discouragement from destination countries?
Hear from Vani Saraswathi, a journalist who has spent years documenting the experiences of migrants working in the Gulf states. Then host Maggie Prezyna speaks with experts Nicola Piper (University of Sydney) and Joseph Teye (University of Ghana) to explore the unique patterns and challenges of South-South migration.
Maggie is a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration & Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University and this new podcast is Borders & Belonging. Maggie will talk to leading experts from around the world and people with on-the-ground experience to explore the individual experiences of migrants: the difficult decisions and many challenges they face on their journeys.
She and her guests will also think through the global dimensions of migrants’ movement: the national policies, international agreements, trends of war, climate change, employment and more.
Borders & Belonging brings together hard evidence with stories of human experience to kindle new thinking in advocacy, policy and research.
Top researchers contribute articles that complement each podcast with a deeper dive into the themes discussed.
Borders & Belonging is a co-production between the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration & Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University and openDemocracy. The podcast was produced by LEAD Podcasting, Toronto, Ontario.
Show notesBelow, you will find links to all of the research referenced by our guests, as well as other resources you may find useful.
Donate or get involved!MIGRANT-RIGHTS.ORG
Kafala system, Human Rights Watch
Media‘Decolonising knowledge production on south-south migration’, by Mariama Awumbila, Leander Kandilige and Mary Setrana, MIDEQ (25 March 2022)
‘Q&A: South-South migration has long been overlooked. Why?’, by Eric Reidy, MIDEQ (8 July 2021)
‘New labour law ends Qatar’s exploitative kafala system’, by Pete Pattisson, The Guardian (1 September 2020).
‘What or where is the ‘Global South’? A social science perspective’, by Sebastian Haug, London School of Economics (28 September 2021)
Research projects and policy‘Africa regional fair recruitment report: The recruitment of migrant workers to, within and from Africa’, International Labour Organization (ILO)
‘The Future of African Migration and Mobility: Continent on the Move or Contained?’, by Mehari Taddele Maru, European Union Institute for Security Studies
‘GCRF South-South Migration, Inequality and Development Hub’, UK Research and Innovation
‘Migration Dynamics, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in Africa’, by Aderanti Adepoju, United Nations
‘Migration for Development and Equality’ (MIDEQ), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF)
South-South Migration, OECD
BooksCordell, D. D., Gregory, J. W., & Piché, V. (2020). ‘Hoe and Wage: A Social History of a Circular Migration System in West Africa’. Routledge.
Hujo, K., & Piper, N. (Eds.). (2010). South-South Migration: Implications for Social Policy and Development. Springer.
Kyei, R. K. O., Kadje, D. M., Kandilige, L., Abutima, T. K., Obour, P. B., Osiki, O. M., & Asante, R. K. (2017). ‘Migration and Development in Africa: Trends, Challenges, and Policy Implications’. Lexington Books.
Academic worksAwumbila, M., Teye, J. K., & Yaro, J. A. (2017). ‘Social networks, migration trajectories and livelihood strategies of migrant domestic and construction workers in Accra, Ghana’. Journal of Asian and African Studies.
Castles, S. (2009). ‘Development and migration--migration and development: what comes first? Global perspective and African experiences’. Theoria.
Foley, L., & Piper, N. (2021). ‘Returning home empty handed: Examining how COVID-19 exacerbates the non-payment of temporary migrant workers’ wages’. Global Social Policy.
Piper, N. (2009). ‘The complex interconnections of the migration–development nexus: A social perspective’. Population, Space and Place.
Piper, N. (2022). ‘Temporary labour migration in Asia: The transnationality‐precarity nexus’. International Migration.
Piper, N., Rosewarne, S., & Withers, M. (2017). Migrant precarity in Asia:‘Networks of labour activism’ for a rights‐based Governance of migration. Development and Change.
Piper, N., & Rother, S. (2022). ‘Governing regional migration from the ‘bottom-up’: a nodal approach to the role of transnational activist networks in Asia’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Teye, J. K. (2022). ‘Critical migration policy narratives from West Africa’. International Migration.
Teye, J. K., Awumbila, M., & Benneh, Y. (2015). ‘Intra-regional migration in the ECOWAS region: Trends and emerging challenges’ (p.96). In, Migration and Civil Society as Development Drivers-a Regional Perspective. Center for European Integration Studies.
Withers, M. & Piper, N. (2022). ‘Decent wages for decent work in Asia: Addressing the temporality-precarity nexus in South-South migration. In Global Labor Migration: New Directions. University of Illinois Press.
TranscriptMaggie Perzyna
Welcome to Borders & Belonging, a podcast that explores issues in global migration, and aims to debunk myths about migration, based on current research. This series is produced by CERC Migration and openDemocracy. I'm Maggie Perzyna, a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Today's episode is about South to South migration. It's a phenomenon that describes the movement of people between countries outside of Europe and North America. It represents the most significant migratory movement of people, and yet, the issues surrounding it are largely ignored by the West. In fact, most of the coverage we see in the media about migration focuses on refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants trying to get to countries in North America and Western Europe. In this episode, two esteemed researchers will give us insights into some of the major trends behind South-South migration. But first, we'll hear from a journalist who has spent years documenting the experiences of migrants working in the Gulf states. Vani Saraswathi is the editor at large and Director of Projects for migrant-rights.org. It's an advocacy organization that aims to advance the rights of migrants working in the Gulf region around the Arabian Peninsula. Many migrants come from India, East Africa, and the Philippines.
Vani Saraswathi
They come with a plan to build a house, to put their kids through school or to get their sister married or daughter married. They have these plans for a better economic environment for their children for their families. And that can go wrong, terribly wrong. What they don't account for is a lack of social support. That when they come here, they're going to be working and living in absolute isolation. If you're a female migrant worker in the domestic work sector, you're going to be literally imprisoned in your employer's home.
Maggie Perzyna
Vani currently lives in India, the same country where she was born and raised. But she spent 17 years living and working in the Gulf, where she met dozens of migrants with a range of experiences. Some made the trip after hearing success stories from their home countries, like this one from India.
Vani Saraswathi
The southern state of Kerala has a very, very high rate of migration. And it's a wealthy state, you see that wealth. And you know that wealth came from remittances from the Gulf. That is a motivator for everyone else.
Maggie Perzyna
While the motivation may be a widespread phenomenon, the success rate is a lot less common. Vani says this is due in part to the fact that all migrants in the Gulf are employed under something called the Kafala system.
Vani Saraswathi
It's a network of laws and practices, basically, tying an individual or non-nationals, residents and work permits to one national entity. To either a citizen employer or a citizen-run business or a locally registered business. So, it gives the employer unmitigated powers over the worker, your work and residence is tied to the same entity. The government has just outsourced immigration policies to the individual.
Maggie Perzyna
This is particularly problematic for a region where the majority of the labour market is made up of migrant workers earning low wages in construction, agriculture, and domestic work. And throughout the nearly two decades that Vani lived in Qatar, she saw the consequences of this with our own eyes.
Vani Saraswathi
So, you saw violations like, of course, overworking, being housed in terrible conditions, not being paid properly or not being paid at all. But what has really stuck was the fact that there was no accountability. The government wasn't held accountable. And the businesses, the employers were not held accountable. So, you saw that you had like millions of workers across the Gulf. Women coming from the Global South, having no labour protection, no legal protection outside of the visa regime. Domestic workers laws in these countries are very recent, and they've always been excluded from labour laws. So, you started noticing this more, that not only were there violations, but there was a deliberate attempt to stop any kind of access to justice.
Maggie Perzyna
Through her work, Vani has heard some heart wrenching stories from migrants. Some former domestic workers spoke about being sexually abused by their employers. People in the fishing industry talked about being arrested by coast guards while on the job. And across the board, there seemed to be an overall disrespect for their basic rights as workers.
Vani Saraswathi
A small thing like not being paid on time, which will appear small, has a devastating impact on the families, children dropping out of schools, the elderly, not getting medicine. So, these are the kinds of things that we try to bring in, in our reporting.
Maggie Perzyna
Vani's main takeaway from all her time in the Gulf, as a migrant herself, and now as an editor who travels there often for work, is that any potential solutions to improving the rights of migrants in the region should focus primarily on labour laws.
Vani Saraswathi
What they really need to look at is not just safe migration, yes, there is a trafficking component that we need to look at. But what is more important is forced labour in destination. And that can be avoided. And that comes when you ensure your laws, and the enforcement of the laws, protect the rights of your workers - labour rights and other human rights. And this doesn't exist in the Gulf context. Freedom of association, freedom of speech, all of this doesn't exist.
Maggie Perzyna
Many thanks to Vani Saraswathi, for sharing her experiences reporting from the Gulf. To discuss the unique patterns and challenges of South-South migration, I have Nicola Piper, professor of international migration and founding director of the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Center at the University of Sydney, and Professor Joseph Teye, director of the Center for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana. Thanks to you both for joining me. In the Global North, we hear mainly about South to North migration, and not as much about South to South migration. Can you tell us what defines South to South migration?
Professor Joseph Teye
Yeah, so when we talk about South to South migration, we are talking about migration from one country in the Global South to another region or country in the Global South. So maybe if I move from Ghana to Sierra Leone, or you know, Ghana to Nigeria, then we call it South-South migration, or somebody is moving from Haiti to Ghana, that we also call South-South migration, which is different from movement from a Southern country to another country, which is the South-North migration. Unlike South-North migration, where mostly, the distance covered is quite high, the South-South migration sometimes can be within the same region. So, if you take West Africa, for instance, you have countries within the region, where people have been moving from one country to another for millennia. So, in the Western African region, for instance, people used to move from the Sahel region, we are talking about countries, such as Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso. These are countries that find themselves in areas that are a little bit dry, where the rainfall region is not very good for cultivation of crops. So, they tend to move towards the southern part of the West Africa. So, they move into Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, southern Nigeria, to farm. And then they go back during the rainy season to farm in their own lands, and they come back. So. in the South-South migration, normally it's happening intra-regionally. So, whereas we talk a lot about South-North migration, about 70% of mobility, globally happens within the region. And South-South migration is a dominant form of mobility for people within the Global South. If you are talking about Africa in general, we tend to hear about exodus from Africa to Europe. And that is how the media presents it. But about 70% of the people that are migrating from Africa, are moving within their region. Even so, those that are moving out of West Africa, some are going to Central Africa, some are going to Eastern Africa, some are going to Southern Africa, or some are moving to places in the Middle East, which is also still part of South-South migration. And that is why within South-South migration is very important. But it is not well covered in the literature, and it is not well covered in the media.
Maggie Perzyna
So, it seems as though the term is not being used just as a geographical locator but as a euphemism for a more complex narrative. Nicola, what do you think?
Professor Nicola Piper
Yeah, I suppose in answering this question, I think we need to first of all think about what the term or concept South-South refers to. You know, to think about the broader questions, where and what is the Global South? When did this term emerge? Who uses the term and why? One definition used, in particular within policy circles, is very much of descriptive nature. And in this sense it represents the most recent term in a long list of catch-all concepts used to identify, define, and cluster the poorer parts of the word. So Global South in this context replaces terminology deemed no longer appropriate in an area of independent nations, you know, post-colonialism. So, analysts, researchers and NGOs usually draw on the World Bank's classification of countries as low or middle-income located in Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin...