Kenya has criticized the emergence of punitive protectionist and restrictive migration policies against Africans.
Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Amb Macharia Kamau, who is attending the first Global Diaspora Summit in Dublin, Ireland, said migration has always been a natural, spontaneous event that has taken place since time immemorial.
He termed the policies a great tragedy.
“We need to ask ourselves: What is it about African migration that is so antithetical to many governments and non-African people around the world?” Kamau posed on Monday.
The summit, which was co-hosted by International Organization for Migration-UN Migration and the government of Ireland, discussed the meaningful contribution diaspora communities can make to the effective development and prosperity of their home countries.
Migration issue is now at the centre of disagreements between the mainly poor sending countries and the richer receiving states.
Following the Russia invasion of Ukraine, European countries joined hands and quickly offered support to Ukrainians escaping Russian aggression.
The European Union agreed in record time to activate the Temporary Protection Directive to help people fleeing the war.
These was seen as a departure from previous attitudes towards war refugees from Africa and the Middle East, raising questions of racism and discrimination.
KarolĂna Augustová, an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Aston University and an activist researching EU migration, notes that Hungary, Croatia and Poland, for example, have been militarising their borders to stop refugees from the Middle East and beyond from entering their territory (and the EU) since 2015.
“It is impossible to deny that skin phenotype and culture have an effect on refugees’ journeys and fates – those who look “European” find solidarity and safety on this continent, but others often see exclusion and violence,” Augustová writes for the Al Jazeera.
This is despite the AU and EU adopting various frameworks on migration.
For instance, the two organisations adopted the Cairo Action Plan (a supplement of the Cairo Declaration) in 2000, focusing on addressing the root causes of migration and asylum seeking, as well as combatting racism and xenophobia; the EU–Horn of Africa Migration Route Initiative (Khartoum Process) in 2014 and the Action Plan of the Valletta Summit on Migration in 2015.
While some developed countries, especially in Europe, are restrictive. developing countries are demanding more open policies.
PS Kamau was accompanied to Kenya’s Ambassador to Ireland Michael Mubea and Ambassador Peter Ogego.
During his visit, PS Kamau and Ambassador Mubea on April 3 hosted a working dinner with Kenyans living in Ireland in an effort to promote diaspora engagement.
