Globaleyes

Globalization and Migration

By Carol Thiessen

This is the third in a series of articles on economic globalization sponsored by the Peace Ministries Program of MCC Canada. The writers are young adult Canadians who are studying and thinking about globalization and seeking to make a difference.

Every day hundreds of Africans cram into flimsy fishing canoes and venture into the Atlantic Ocean destined for distant European shores. Many cast off from Mauritania, but some come from as far as Senegal, 1600 km to the south. The lucky ones find land in the Canary Islands, a Spanish island outpost off the northwest coast of Africa. The unlucky ones die. This winter over 1000 African men and women lost their lives on these dangerous sea journeys.

In countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sudan, children as young as five are kidnapped or sold by desperate parents to become camel jockeys in the Persian Gulf states. Aid workers estimate there are up to 40,000 young children working this way across the Persian Gulf states. They are often injured in the races and mistreated by their trainers. Some die.

Closer to home, hundreds of young Mexicans make dangerous dashes across the US border each day, hoping to find jobs and eventual riches in the promised land to the north. Many are turned back, others are detained, and a troubling number die or are killed during the arduous crossings. Those who make it often face lives on the margins of society.

In May 2006, a few hundred thousand undocumented workers decided to show their faces in demonstrations across the US. It was a potent reminder of how many people live precarious lives around us. Immigration activists estimate there are 500,000 undocumented workers in Canada. According to UN figures, there are more than 185 million migrants in the world today.

People on the move

There is nothing new in people movements. If we checked out our genealogies, most of us would quickly trace ourselves back to immigrants seeking better lives in Canada.

But many analysts see an increasing link to globalization in today's people movements. Economic policies pursued in the name of globalization, such as deregulation, free trade, and emphasis on exports may better some lives, but the poorest often end up even more poor. And most people migrate because they are poor - because they can't feed their families, because they lost their jobs, because there is no hope of better lives in their country.

At an MCC-sponsored globalization consultation in Nepal in 2003, participants spoke of trade-related policies threatening rural livelihoods, decreasing their access to food and increasing inequality. They spoke of the 20-80 divide - the proportion of the region or world's population who benefit from globalization versus those who do not. People were becoming more and more vulnerable.

Since Mexico, the United States and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992, for example, Mexico's annual per capita growth rate has barely ventured above 1 percent. Real wages in Mexico have fallen. According to Oxfam, 1.7 million Mexican farmers have left their land since NAFTA.

Some 10,000 Mexicans seek work on Canadian farms through a seasonal agricultural worker program.

That's the economic push. At the same time, the global media now beam images of Western riches into the farthest corners of the world. So not only are migrants being pushed out of their own countries, but they are also being pulled toward the West by hope.

Keeping migrant workers out

Yet when we see images of Mexican labourers lining up for day jobs in suburban America, or hear stories of Chinese migrants huddled in container ships bound for our shores, the natural tendency is to react in fear, not reward their hope. We worry about being swamped by foreigners, who will take our jobs or steal our stereos. They may even be terrorists.

So our governments construct fences to keep out the foreigners, and protect borders with ever increasing vigilance. Canada spends $300 million each year controlling its borders.

The result is not quite as planned. The more barriers are ratcheted up, the more desperate measures people must take to get in. Perversely, those who benefit most are human smugglers and traffickers. The trade in humans, it seems, is even more lucrative than drug trafficking.

Some migrants voluntarily pay vast sums to smugglers for help in crossing international borders. Others end up in the hands of traffickers - those who may help people cross borders but then keep them in bondage after they cross. It is often women and children who are trafficked, and many end up in the sex trade. A 2004 RCMP report found that at least 600 foreign women and girls were coerced into joining the Canadian sex trade each year by traffickers. This is a mighty gloomy picture.

Yet these are our neighbours. As Jeroen Doomernik writes in The Political Economy of New Slavery, "Globalization has made Asia and Africa into direct neighbours of Western Europe and Northern America." The world is one extended neighbourhood.

What can we do?

For Christians, this notion of neighbours comes with moral obligations. In the book of Luke, when the law expert asks who is neighbour is, he is told the parable of the Good Samaritan. His neighbour, he learns, is whoever is in need. The neighbour is the one who showed mercy to the beaten stranger.

Mennonites have done well at welcoming newcomers into our churches and communities. We have a long history of sponsoring refugees. But are we also willing to open our doors and hearts to those who don't come with gruesome stories of persecution? To those simply seeking a hopeful future, where they have meaningful work and nutritious food? Are we willing to denounce global structures that enslave people? Are we willing to call for a more humane globalization - whether that is more favourable trade rules for developing countries, controls on currency speculation, more development aid, and debt relief - even if that means fewer dollars in our own pockets?

We shouldn't have to hear stories of exploited child jockeys, women forced into prostitution to pay for passage, and African men venturing north in the most precarious of sailing vessels. Because they shouldn't have to be taking these desperate measures in the first place. It would be better for all of us to build a world where people don't have to leave their homes. But when they do come, let's welcome them, not stifle their hope.

 

Carol Thiessen is a freelance writer living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She recently completed a M.Sc. in Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.

 

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