The International Organization for Migration (IOM) Gambia Office, in partnership with the Gambia Press Union (GPU), on Saturday. May 8, 2021 oriented nine (9) Gambian journalists who would be undergoing a six-month migration reporting fellowship programme in the Gambia.
The Program Officer of the GPU, Mr. Lamin Jahateh, said a research was done about migration reporting in the Gambia and the findings showed that migration is not frequently covered in the country, despite the important role migration and migrants contribute to the socio-economic development of the country.
He described the Gambia as one of the biggest contributors to irregular migration in the sub-region into Europe whilst a little has been covered by the Gambian media about the issue. “Only 1.5% migration issues are reported by local Gambian media,” he stated.
Journalist Modou S. Joof, who was one of the facilitators of the orientation, delved into the migration terms and concepts, saying many people use wrong and derogatory migration terms against migrants, which even some media practitioners are also sometimes guilty of in their migration reporting.
Joof said the 21st century migration trends revealed that, in 2019 over a billion people were reported to be migrants around the world; 740 million were internal migrants in 2009 whilst 272 million were international migrants in 2019.
Migration is universally accepted as fundamental human rights while reasons for migration vary from person-to-person or from situation-to-situation ranging from political, medical, educational, security, economic to social factors such as marriages from one community or state to another across the world.
According to the IOM Gambia office, there are two main routes that irregular migrants usually use to travel to Europe, namely the Central Mediterranean, and Western Mediterranean route. It also stated that over seven thousand (7000) Gambians have used the Western Mediterranean route so far, and a similar figure for the Central Mediterranean route.
The IOM office in the Gambia, in collaboration the European Union, had developed several interventions to facilitate the voluntary return of irregular migrants stranded on the perilous journey in North Africa and elsewhere; but has also financial and medical packages for returnees for their smooth reintegration process in the Gambia.
The Assistance Voluntary Return and Reintegration project (AVRR) of the IOM Gambia office has three components that provide assistance to irregular migrant returnees such as the individual support, community-based support and collective support packages.
IOM data showed that Arabic graduates formed the largest group of irregular migrants in the Gambia, as the report indicates mostly graduates from the Madrassas usually don’t possess the technical skills and English language proficiency needed in the formal employment sectors of the country.
The International pro-safe-migration body has worked with irregular migrant returnees in this Covid-19 pandemic to distribute face masks, conducted sensitization campaigns on the safety and preventive measures of the Covid pandemic as well as donated 2000 Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to health facilities across the country.
Recently, the Gambia has launched the Gambia Migration Policy (GMP) which seeks to lay the foundational and national framework of migration protocols in the country.
