The Origin of Countries Names: Africa

2016 Migratory Report by Matias Cavoti Part 5: Africa

Africa:

To begin this section on Africa giving a brief picture some of the general problems that migrants have to face in their trek towards better opportunities, then we will observe particular problems that were relevant during the last three year in individual countries. No African nation is classified as a tier 1,  20 of its States are tier 2 countries like Ethiopia. Morocco and Egypt, 16 are tier 2 watch list, with Mali, Niger and Tunisia being the most notable. Now the continent has the highest concentration  of tier 3 States with a total of 13  with both Sudans, Eritrea, Djibouti and Algeria being some of the most complex cases and finally two of the three special cases of countries that suffer extremely high levels of lawlessness Libya and Somalia can be found in this group of nations.

 An important problem characterizes this content like a high number of Stateless people, who are individuals that lack any kind of identity documents and their countries do not recognize them as their citizens/national, and severely hinders their access to any basic public services like health and education complicating these people economic opportunities. The UN agency for Refugees estimates 10 million people are Stateless around the world and 1/3 are minors (P23, TIP 2016). 

Now, why are Stateless people of interest in a migratory report? well its due to the fact that they do not have any type identification or nationality in the first place, as mention before, so obviously they do not have travel documents so there obligated to transit illegally, having to use smugglers to cross, possibly falling into the hands of traffickers because they are easy targets to coerce or to tricked  into bonded labor. Stateless people are the permanent fuel reserve for the trafficker and smugglers.

Another aspect that traffickers take advantage is that stateless people are not nationals of any State,  they have no national authorities to go to, these people have never been registered as citizens anywhere so no State has the obligation to find them if they go missing, they are as invisible as you can get.

A Stateless person can't access public education, health, get married, get a driver's license, work...legally, it like they don't exist; But how does this happen? Well, normally when a  person is born the infant acquires the nationality of where he/or she is born or it is acquired through descendence from their parents, and in some cases a person must apply to become a national in the first place. Most of the time citizens are formally registered in the public administration of the country where they were born and is given a birth certificate and identification. Now it must be understood in the case of many African States especially sub-Saharan Nations, they do not have their whole population covered with identity documents but not all of these undocumented people are considered Stateless. Now some people are born stateless, and others become stateless; but how can this happen? Basically State themselves generate this situation through action, omission or error, they negate the possibility to certain people in their territory the possibility in accessing citizenship, in some cases the mere presence of these individuals is deemed illegal, even if it's their country of birth.   

An interesting example of Stateless people in Africa, is the case of the people that fled the civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone that are no longer considered by their host countries as refugees and were not allowed to naturalize there and have had difficulty repatriating themselves, in an article called "Who belongs? Statelessness and Nationality in West Africa" by Bronwen Mandy gives the example Liberia turned down 1.000 petitions for Passports from ex-refugees that were Liberian but their homeland justified because these people did not have enough Knowledge of Liberia. 
In Africa groups that are at risk of becoming Stateless are: as mention before refugees,  irregular migrants and their children are explicitly discriminated against and not allowed to naturalize or have legal residencies, nomadic populations that have always suffered suspicions from settled populations, border population that no State wants to take responsibility for and  children that are born out of wedlock with single mothers or raped women in which many African countries will not give this person nationality because it is only given through paternal descent.
Now in Africa, even those who would have no problem into accessing the right of identification and nationality are a serious problem accessing them because of the excessive requirements and costs. Weak in civil registration and identification plagues the African States, only 4% of births are registered in Liberia, 24% in Guinea-Bissau and less the 50% in Niger and Nigeria (Bronwen/MPI 2016), so many African have no opportunity in acquiring the basic travel documents that they need, pushing them to migrate irregularly.  And if they could  African travel documents have very little access to visa-free travel, another hurdle if they want to migrate,  in a ranking of 160 countries made by passport index, in the bottom ten countries five are from Africa  Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Eritrea and Sudan. Seychelles is the highest ranked African country in 55th place and South Africa the first continental State at 93rd.  
      

Eastern Africa: 

Djibouti: This country is a transit place of Ethiopian, Somali and Eritrean voluntarily and involuntarily migrants in route to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. This country is a tier 3 State so it's a hotspot for human trafficking and a distribution hub for these criminals, and adding to this situation because of the  between Yemen and Saudi Arabia that has been raging since (YEAR),   30.000 Yemeni citizens have crossed into Djibouti fleeing the war in their country of origin, being exploited once they arrive to this African nation, some being kidnapped for ransom by smugglers.  

 Eritrea: This State is classified tier 3 and both the IOM  and TIP  reports establish that Eritrean nationals are suffering disproportionally at the hands of traffickers, in a study by van Reisen Estefanos and Rijken, called The Human Trafficking Cycle: Sinai and Beyond mentions that between 25.000-30.000 (121p. FJ) Eritreans had fallen victim to organized crime between 2009-2013 and around 10.000 have died. Many were kidnapped for ransom, that if not paid, they are killed and some get  their organs to be sold on the Egyptian black market, which in the report mentions that the World Health Organization (WHO 2015) actually accuses Egypt to be an organ trafficking hotspot. In the Mediterranean Missing report from 2016 also accuses Turkey of organ trafficking, practicing unnecessary autopsies on the dead to mask organ removal from the bodies of dead migrants and refugees

Now what drives Eritreans to leave their country, the report mentions that obligatory military conscription pushes many people out to the country, because the time they serve in the military is just terrible and inhuman, evading this is considered a major crime in the country, this puts people on the run and adding to this situation Eritrean government has a policy of shooting on sight if caught red handed leaving the country by land or sea.

It must be noted that in the TIP report, Eritrea only gets a very basic diagnostic, about two paragraphs, while most countries get half to a full page of information, and the study explicitly mentions that  US official have no idea what's going on in the country, in another report on Terrorism published 2015 also by the State Department they actually recognize this problem and put as a priority to obtain intelligence from this country. 

Ethiopia: This countries national also fall victim to trafficker once they cross into Yemen, and even those who are not victims of these crimes suffer great hardships in their route to Saudi Arabia, now during 2013-2014 this Arab country had a cracked down on migrants, using forced returns with deported 160.000 (p 141. FJ) Ethiopians. as mentioned previously the flow into Yemen is bidirectional flow but it's estimated that in 2016 around 92.000 (P 24. FJ2) Ethiopians are in Yemen, and 168.000 Yemenis have left their country with 79.000 have crossed into Africa.

Many Ethiopians boys are trafficked to Djibouti and forced to work as errand boys, domestic workers, thieves and street beggars. But many times the minor's parent forcibly send them to Djibouti or they leave the country by their own initiative alone bribing public officials to acquire passports without their parent's consent to search for work tending to fall into the grasp of traffickers most of the time.

Ethiopia has one of the highest fertility rates in the world with a population of 92 million, so  a full blown Ethiopian Exodus in the future could be a potential crisis in waiting, one must add that in this country there is also a culture of migration, to migrate and establish oneself is a sign of personal success.  

 Sudan: This country is characterized with a complicated situation with important amounts of unaccompanied minors, refugees and asylum seekers primarily from East and West Africa  that somehow have ended up in its territory, that are vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor, there have been reports of cases of Ethiopians and Eritreans being abducted from Sudan based refugee camps. Eritreans have even been kidnapped from or near border crossings, brutalized and offered return only if a ransom is paid, the responsible from this particular migratory crime are linked to the Rashaida Tribe but the Sudanese border guards allegedly facilitate the abductions  (IOM 2016).  

Northern Africa:

Algeria: Even though this country is a member of the IOM  neither both Fatale Journey reports or the Connecting the Dots study mention this country, and both studies write extensively about what is happening in the region of the Maghreb referring the perils and difficulties migrants suffer in that part of the world, but the US Tip report does elaborate on the Human Trafficking situation in this country, that is classified as a tier 3, explaining that undocumented sub-Saharan migrants from Mali, Niger, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria are vulnerable to labor and sex traffickers, because of their irregular migratory status, their need to work, to be able to feed themselves and the language barrier, creates this level of social isolation that make it easy for trafficker to obtain new recruits.  

Isolation plays a fundamental role for human trafficking to thrive and maintain itself, it seeks to hide from government oversight, finding a strong foothold in rural and agriculture areas, at high sea in fishing vessels, in mines and in other isolated industries like textile workshops. But there are other forms of isolation that migrants suffer especially which can be can be cultural, political and legal isolation in transit or destination countries which pushes them illegality, which can leave these people in a situation of vulnerability for the trafficker to take advantage of this situation.

Debt bondage with smugglers is a common practice in this country, with migrants having to pay for their services through domestic labor, forced begging or prostitution. In some cases of the beggars will rent babies to other conational beggars so they can generate more sympathy and make more money.   

The Department of State report affirms that Tuareg are one of the groups that pushing the slave trade in the reason, thanks to their capacity and logistics in the Sahel. The Report also explains that the Algerian authorities are sluggish in their response to the cases of human trafficking and have the tendency of arresting and detaining the victims of migratory violations, so these people many times do not have who to turn to and do not denounce in fear of ending up in jail themselves.   Vacatur is a fundamental concept in the fight against human trafficking, it establishes that crimes committed as result of being subjected to trafficking, such record should be vacated or expunged. Vacatur is the formal recognition of factual innocence, because if this doesn't happen victims cannot make any plea for help to State official because they are at risk of being jailed or expelled, and this plays right into the trafficker's hands.  

Egypt: A trafficking issue that stands out in Egypt, is when individuals from the Persian Gulf, including Saudi, Kuwaiti and Emirati nationals perches Egyptian women and girls for temporary or summer marriages for the commercial sex and/or forced domestic labor, with the parents of the girls work as the transaction brokers. Syrian women have been easy targets to force into marriage or to sell them off as domestic labor

In Egypt itself South Asians, East Africans and Syrians are subjected to forced labor, domestic services and begging, and the report explains the foreign domestic workers a not covered by Egyptian labor law leaving these people in an extremely vulnerable situation, suffering excessive hour of work, confiscation of travel documents, withholding wages, denial of food and medical.

The Sinai Peninsula had been a hotbed of illegal activities of human and organ trafficking, a place where many Eritreans fall victim, but during 2015/16 the Egyptian Army have moved into the area expelling these criminal elements, but it's possible that these same groups have resurfaced and relocated on the Libyan border.

Libya: Racism and Xenophobia are major issues for migrants in this country and this is added to the already complicated social-political situation, but migrants still travel to this country searching for work. Now when they arrive discovering the hostility towards them, and this tends to push them to try their luck in crossing the Mediterranean, before returning home empty handed to their homelands. In some cases migrants are trapped in Libya not willing to cross to Europe and facing a hostile situation, they find that they have no one to go to because most countries have closed their embassies since the end of the war. 

In the US TIP report  doesn't classify Libya in any of the tiers, but considers this country a Special Case, with Somalia and Syria, these are State with a high level of lawlessness due to the conflict that these States have to deal and this internal chaos has produced a fertile breeding ground for trafficker and migrants exploitation in general. In the case of  Libya, this country has trafficking networks reach stretch into Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan shuttling victims to forcibly work Libya or trick people into going to the country with the promise of a false job.  

In the  Connecting the Dots Report reveals why there is such hostility towards migrants, explaining that  rival factions, the official government, and rebel groups, accusing the migrants having helped the opposing  side, with a particularly strong scapegoating against Palestinian and Syrians, but  this comes off  somewhat as a paradox because the Libyan Crisis has "created the perception of the  Door of Europe being open"  (82p. Altai)  and Libya is the doorstep. Libya is the main jumping point to cross to Italy and Malta, 80%  (78p. Altai) of all the illegal boat arrivals to Italy part from Libya.

 In the case of Sub-Saharan migrants, there is a strong cultural push back in this North African country against what was Muammar Gadafi's migratory policy of open doors towards African migrants, being part of his Pan-African political stance. Now, in contrast, the country has 18 official detention centers, under the control Directorate for Combating Illegal Migrants, a public institution created specifically to crack down on irregular migrants. Now one must note is that in the rebel-held areas of the country they also have migrant detention facilities but in unspecified numbers. 

The 26 of June of 2016 The European Commission created two task forces to engage Libyan authorities to better control the outflow of migrants using their country as a platform to cross to Europe. The first mission was to better prepare Libyan coast guard and Navy, to stop smuggler vessel from using their costs. The second mission affects the migratory flow indirectly is coordinating with the Libyan State in stopping the flow of weapons from crossing into Europe leading to more control on vessels, possibly stopping smuggler in these checks (European Commission 2016).    

Morocco: When migrants arrive to Morocco many stay  because of the difficulty in crossing to Spain, be it because the hindrance of the Moroccan or Spanish authorities or by the fact that they actually find jobs in the country, Morocco has a need for migrant labor in the agricultural sector and in construction and authorities actually gives them the possibility of establishing themselves legally, so they can be able to work. So in various ways, this State sometimes works like a buffer/barrier nation blocking the entrance to Europe, and they use this capability as a political tool to negotiate with Europe. 

Some female undocumented migrants primarily from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa are coerced into prostitution, the TIP report mentions that criminal networks operating out of Oujda near the Algerian border and in the northern coastal town of Nadar forced undocumented migrants into the sex trade and into begging (TIP 2016). The study also mentions Cameroonian and Nigerian trafficking networks established in Morocco exploit migrants and also threaten their families back home if they do not do their biddings (TIP 2016).

There are four main crossing routes to Spain from Morocco:  through the Gibraltar stretch, Tangier-Tarifa and two land crossings into Melilla and Ceuta, the two Spanish enclaves in Morocco that were mention before in the section about Spain. A big issue with Spain is the fact that Syrians actually are able to "rent" Moroccan passports, because ethnically they are similar to Moroccans who are allowed to enter transitorily to the enclaves, once in, they petition for asylum. It is interesting to see that latter this worked the other way in 2015 becuase Moroccans posed as Syrian in the Balkan corridor to enter Europe.

Tunisia: The country has disarticulated most of the migratory flow through its territory especial heading towards the sea, there are many migratory checkpoints in the country filtering out irregular migrants. But everything isn't perfect in this country there have been reports of mass graves near Zargis of bodies that wash up on shore, locals have nothing to do with the dead so they basically throw them in a pit at the local landfill. 

West and Central Africa: 

Mali: The situation in this country isn't as bad as previously mentioned African countries but it does have a trafficking hotspot the  city of Gao being pinpointed as another trafficking center for migrants, in OIM reports, but in the US TIP report Mali is a Tier 2 not mentioning the criminal activities in this city, even though it mentions that "alleged corruption is pervasive throughout the security forces and judiciary institution, which impedes on the government's efforts to persecute crimes in general, including trafficking" (p260 TIP 2016). The Report does mention that the Tuareg do practice hereditary slavery practices and that Malian boys like many other west African youth that are of Muslim faith are forced to beg for their Marabouts / Religous Teachers.

 Mauritania: Like in Niger hereditary slavery is practiced in this country, having a traditional slave cast, women of this group are at high risk of being forced into the slave trade and being sent abroad. The TIP report affirms that Middle Eastern and North African use legally contracted marriages to sexually exploit Mauritanian women and girls to become sex slaves in Saudi Arabia, sometime women are tricked to think they are going to be employed in Arabe State and end up or in the sex trade or in forced domestic servitude. West African boys sent to the Mauritanian Muslim religious schools are forced to beg for the local Imans, but really stands out in the TIP report about this country is that "41% of Mauritanian children lack birth certificates, so generally are not permitted to enroll schools, which increases the risk for being trafficked"(p263 TIP 2016), and as mentioned before the lack of proper civil registration open the door to all kinds of human rights abuses.

Niger (Source, Transit and Tier 2 Country): This country is characterized by having a cast based slavery system, Islamic religious teachers called Marabouts make their students beg, prostitute themselves and force them into domestic labor and OIM reports establishes that the cities of Arlit and Agadez, are human trafficking hotspots. Loosely organized networks of Individual including Marabouts trafficking migrants to Algeria, while in the south near Nigeria Borno State Boko Haram kidnaps minors to serve in their terrorist organization.

Trafficked Children from Niger and from Neighbor countries are sold to work in countries mines, while trafficked women are sold as "Fifth Wives" who are subject to forced domestic and sexual labor typically they between the ages of 9 and 11 and their children are born slaves (TIP 2016).  

 

Syrian in Africa: Something that laid the ground work for the disaster that pushed thousands of Syrian  fleeing their conflict to cross by boat to Europe via Turkey , when air travel routs started to be blocked in 2013 Egypt started to require visas for Syrian passengers so airlines companies wouldn't embark those who didn't have them and Egyptian authorities wouldn't issue them, in 2014 Algeria and Libya followed the same example, leaving Sudan as the only option to travel by air and latter they would transit to Libya by land to try and cross into Europe by boat.

Breakdown and Highlights of IOM Report: Fatal Journeys 1-2 work in progress: Tracking the Lives Lost During the Migration (2014)

Fatal Journeys Volume 2; Identification and Tracing of the Dead and Missing Migrants.

By: IOM's Gobal Migration Data Analysis Center (GMDAC)

So today I bring you guys  a new IOM report that is a follow up to Fatal Journeys that came out this year (2016). This study instead of revisiting the migratory issues by region, it just focuses on three basic problems that are all related border deaths,  missing migrants and the suffering of the families that cannot find their love ones.

The  Fatal Journeys Volume 2 (FJ 2) sheds light on the legal void that surrounds this subject and its undesired effects up it also show how some things  are changing and evolving with a interesting collaboration of civil society, NGOs and social media that try to fill the void left by the State, so please enjoy my break down of this new report and it's highlights

 

Things that one can take away from this report:

In 2015, it is estimated that around that 5.400 migrants died or have gone missing trying to cross illegally into destination or transit countries, and 3.770 of those deaths were in failed crossings of the Mediterranean sea. But in first  five months of 2016, there have been 3.100 deaths.

The report centers around borders deaths and missing, and the legal and political void there is around border deaths and the lack of standardized protocols in how to take statistics on the issue.   

Us Border Patrol estimate that 6.500 (P 26. FJ2) border death since 1998 and 320 during 2015, with three major causes being  the Rio Grande, the desert and violence at the border, and one must note that these are deaths on the US side of the border, the report does not have the statistics of the Mexican side. And there is no Coordinated system in tracking migrants death in Mexico and Central America.

"The Red Cross Societies, Humanitarian NGOs such as MSF and civil society fill the gaps left by the State" (P33, FJ2) in help finding incommunicated migrants, the dead and missing.

The Fatal Journey study highlights  the issue of the bodies that are found at high sea that many fisher man do not pick them out of the water because they do not want to be tied down with bureaucratic paper work when handing over the bodies, using the example of Greek fishermen during the migratory crisis of 2015, and one must note that maritime law only makes it obligatory to pick up the living and not the dead. 

In Europe , not on a EU or individual national level, does not have no centralized  database holding information on migrants missing, identified dead or on unidentified bodies. 

Local management and infrastructure have not reinforced in migratory hotspots to deal with the increase of arrivals and deaths, for example in many places the morgues are collapsing because of the over abundance of bodies.

 

More land has to be allocated for burials, referring to the European migratory crisis, so each migrant can get a individual graves with a headstone, individualized if possible.

 

The report mentions some of the NGOs and public institutions  that help migrant's families find their love ones in there trek to the US and near its interior border: 

·         Colibri Center for Human Rights, that has a data base that covers the death on both sides of the border.

·         Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team/EAAF, investigation human rights violation, collecting DNA samples from the dead and families, to see if they can find matches.

·         South Texas Human Rights Center

·         Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University

·         Migrant Rights Collective.

 

Central American countries have a joint project  to identify missing migrants collecting information on bodies found along the route comparing it with info given by the families. This is a collaboration with national governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, with the Mexican State of Chiapas, NGOs and family associations.

The Red Cross has created a app that helps tracing lost migrants on Facebook and Twitter.

Sometime migrants themselves bury their dead are make rudimentary graves and later uploading on  social media who had died and possible place to find the body.

Migrants that cross on illegal vessels write their names on the howl just in case if it sinks, and if it does they will scream their names, tribe and places of birth so if there is any survivors they can inform their families of their deaths.  

Migrant's families need information if there love ones are alive, to be able to bury their dead, economic support to find their love one bodies, Psychosocial support to deal with the fact of the loss of a love one and something that is important  to verify marital status, for inheritance reason and for guardianship.   

There is a lack of  international norms the establishes the obligations of the State  relative to missing migrants and assisting the relatives with the dead, and humanitarian disaster norms do not apply.

 


Fatal Journeys: Tracking the Lives Lost During the Migration (2014)

Edited by Tara Brian and Frank Laczko

Something that becomes apparent when you read this report and other like it is that the Lampedusa tragedy was somewhat of a wakeup call for Europe, that was sort of looking the other way while migrants were drowning trying in the Mediterranean, it was a rude awakening. No this report  focuses on the global hot spots where migrants are perishing or suffering  grave violations.     

 

Things that one can take away from this report:

Something the Report illustrates and has become more and more obvious over the years reading about this subject, that tighter border controls push people to take risks and try crossing using more treacherous routs, and traffickers are ready and waiting to give them a hand, but at a terrible price. Now migrants wouldn't take these unnecessary risks if given accessible legal channels.

These irregular crossings, that by nature go undetected and something goes wrong there will be no one on a State level there to help.

The registration of Border deaths isn't standardized some count the deaths in the vicinity outside of their border, while others only those who die inside, others register those who perish in government  custody. And governments cannot do much in registering the  missing and the unknowns. 

There are real challenges in collecting information on this subject because these migratory flow want to be as invisible a possible, remote topography, environmental challenges. ¿How can you count the missing that you do not know if they crossed or not? The involvement of criminal actors help to keep thing under the radar. And finally the report explains the  border deaths have not been defined on a international level  so this leads to a major problem in taking statistic on the issue.

In 2015, 75%  ( 23p. FJ) of all migrant deaths 3.072 ( 23p. FJ) perished crossing the Mediterranean, and it's estimated that 65% (24p. FJ) of those fatalities are African migrants and from the Middle East.

Report establishes the concept of functional borders, it is composed of a external border and internal border that contains detention facilities and migrants in forced deportation / return.

Africa has three major routes, two heading North the Eastern and Western routes and one that heads east to the Arabian peninsula through the horn of Africa. All three flows are feed by growing populations. The eastern routes are influenced by insecurity, while the western route is mostly composed of economic migrants. The trafficking trade is prominent in all three routes but more prominent in the east. Stronger migratory controls in the east means it's harder to transit legally from one State to another creating a opportunity  for smuggler that help in illegal crossings  and corrupting officials, while in West Africa for example ECOWAS State members have far less barrier and interregional mobility is high  leaving less room for criminal enterprises.

Smugglers and Traffickers many time pose as legitimate travel agencies who openly solicit for clients, deceiving and cheating migrants into purchasing there services, but once in their power they literally own the migrant until the decide to release them.

Report make  a very interesting observation the death counts can get politicized  there for affecting the recollection of the information, and it should be approach from a humanitarian perspective. "Death Counts can be used as a sporting tally" P. 182 competing claims appear, politicians pro and  anti migrant use these statistics in different ways.

Highlights and Interesting Information by Country: 

North and Central America:

United States of America ( Destination Country):  The report states that the "story of  migrants death in North America is a story of exclusion and exposure" (FJ 2015). Migrants and especial poor migrants are increasingly seen as a negative other ( for a certain part of the US society), the ones responsible for the growing social problems in the country, and this  problem leads to not pay attention to migrant deaths, there is a mentality that they broke the law and they brought this onto themselves, the risk of  labor exploitation, being taken advantage of by organized crime and the risk of dying in the crossing.  Migrants face structural violence in the US but with growing controls were met will direct and physical violence in Mexico. I must note that these particular negative views towards migrants do not limit themselves to the US, Extreme right wing parties are rising around the world and they gain great fool hold scapegoatting against these people.

For migrants trying to cross illegally with a relative level of success  they and the smugglers have taken advantage of the US policy of Segmented Enforcement, only guarding the main legal and illegal crossing points not going deep into the desert falling back on the natural barriers of this inhospitable geography , so the migrants go deep into desert that extends the whole southern border far from any community being funneled into dangerous areas. The study explains that during the Clinton administration tightened boarder control during the  mid to late 90's, this lead to a growth of border deaths. With Operation Gate Keeper  in San Diego, Operation Hold the Line in El Paso and Operation Safe Guard in Arizona  pushed migrants in to the desert.  

Mexico (Transition Country, Buffer State, Origin country): Central American on their trek to the US have to transit though Mexico, which is pretty dangerous, many migrant choose to ride on top of freight trains  like the Beast, heading north. The report establishes that Mexico in 2013 had detained 86.298 (p 49. FJ) foreign individuals transiting through it territory.

The report describes that Mexico  has a internal vertical boarder the goes from south to north, where Central Americans migrants experience total illegality, vulnerability and marginalization, with criminal organization praying on them the whole way extorting, enslaving, torturing and kidnapping migrants holding them for  ransom. It is known for example that the Mara Salvatrucha controls whole sections of the rout and migrants must pay to pass.

Now what  generates the migrants from Mexico itself  that  travel by land are farmers and poor families that worked in the agricultural sector that residually  that are still feeling the aftershocks from NAFTA

Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras (Origin Countries): There is a culture of migration in these countries and the report recognizes that Mexico War on Drugs, pushed the organized crime south to these countries, pretty much disrupting these societies with a strong spike in violence and crime in these nations, this added to the poor  economic situation of these State was like adding fuel to the fire producing a large migration from this part of the world.

Africa:

Libya (Transit State, Springboard State, Destination Country): Racism and Xenophobia are a real issue in this country and one must add the complicated social political situation, but migrants still travel to this country searching for work. Now when they arrive discovering the hostility towards them, this tends to push them to try their luck in crossing the Mediterranean, before returning home empty handed.   

Eritrea (Origin country): The report establishes that Eritrean nationals are suffering disproportionally at the hands of Traffickers in a study by van Reisen Estefanos and Rijken, called The Human Trafficking Cycle: Sinai and Beyond mentions that between 25.000-30.000 (121p. FJ) Eritreans had fallen victim to organized crime between 2009-2013 and around 10.000 have died. Many are kidnapped for ransom, that if not paid they are killed and some are killed to traffic their organs to be sold in the Egyptian black market, which in the report mentions that WHO actually accuses Egypt to be a organ trafficking hotspot.

Now what drives Eritreans to leave their country, the report mentions that obligatory military conscription pushes many people out to the country, because the time they serve in the military is just terrible and inhuman, evading this is considered a major crime in the country, this puts people on the run and adding to this Eritrean government has a policy of shooting on sight if caught red handed leaving the country by land and sea.

Ethiopia (Origin Country): Ethiopians also fall victim to trafficker once they cross in to Yemen, even those who are not victims suffer great hardships in the country, in their rout to Saudi Arabia, now during 2013-2014 this country in a migrant crack down forced returned deported 160.000 (p 141. FJ) Ethiopians.  Some of these nationals choose to go transit to South Africa but Anti-Migrant sentiment and Xenophobia are running high in this nation.

Ethiopia has one of the highest fertility rates in the world with a population of 92 million, so  a full blown Ethiopian Exodus in the future could be a potential crisis in waiting, one must add that in this country there is also a culture of migration, to migrate and establish oneself is a sign of personal success.    

 Somalia {Somaliland and Puntland} (Origin Country): Basically a broken State but there nationals are considered mostly refugee's

South Pacific:

Australia (Destination): This country is characterized for having total visas system, almost every country, with very few exceptions like with New Zealand that has a special regimen, so this filters many unwanted visitors helping the country manage the migratory flow.

The migrants that arrive by boat from Indonesia tend to be Afghans, Iranians and Iraqis, while  there are boats that arrive directly from Sri Lanka crossing the Indian Ocean. In most cases the vessels are not sea worthy and do not have a trained crew, so these people put themselves at a great risk. The study also mentions that Australia as a country does not have an agency, law enforcement or migration-focused  institution that publishes boarder related deaths. It's estimated that between 2000-2014: 1.494 (p 186. FJ) boarder related deaths, this figure includes missing at sea and 96% outside of Australia territorial waters. There is very low priority to recuperate bodies and if found there is no information givin to the public of sex, age or nationality.  

Indonesia (Transit Country, Springboard State): In transit to enter illegally in to Australia most migrants travel through this country