sub-Saharan Migrants Research Articles

Is Europe really the dream? Contingent paths among sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco

AbstractThis article explores migrant existences in the border zones around Europe. Drawing on ethnographic research in Morocco undertaken in 2012, 2013 and 2015 and in continued engagements with migrants using social media, the article analyses three extended migrant stories, detailing their experiences of uncertainty, waiting and hoping. By elucidating the objectives informing migrants’ pathways and the material and moral considerations underpinning the ways in which they navigate migrant life in Rabat, the stories unveil how different temporalities and spatialities intersect and influence their decisions and ability to endure hardship and waiting. The article argues that uncertainties and risks inherent in migration, and in irregular migration in particular, have transformed collective expectations of the migratory project as a means of upward social mobility and economic security into hope and into a mode of hoping that individualizes success and failure. Meanwhile, the rising costs of migration and structural marginalization render the opportunity to travel elsewhere contingent on assistance from transnational social networks or international institutions. Individuals’ success or failure thus comes to depend on how understandings of hardship, waiting, opportunity and moral obligation are configured and reconfigured by lived experiences in different places.

The migrant in a plotted adventure: Self-realisation and moral obligation in African stories from Istanbul

ABSTRACTThis article presents the cases of two migrant men, a Senegalese and a Nigerian, who spent many years in Istanbul. Although their backgrounds, personalities and circumstances were different, they both did export-related commercial work in the city. After describing sub-Saharan migration to Turkey and the literature concerning it, the text focuses on the stories these migrants spontaneously presented as they explained why they had become migrants. It was striking that with very different personal details, events and coincidences, both stories attribute the decision to migrate to Istanbul to a traumatic accident that forced the protagonists to change a life that until that point did not involve transnational migration. In the stories the protagonist's ambition, determination and will are rendered invisible and he is presented as a victim. I call this rhetorical topos ‘great mishap’. It resonates with stories I have heard from other migrants. I interpret it as an expression of compunction, of social responsibility weighing on the actor for abandoning close others in favour of an individual quest for self-realisation.

"Times Are Changing": The Impact of HIV Diagnosis on Sub-Saharan Migrants' Lives in France.

BackgroundMigrants account for 35% of HIV diagnoses in the European Union (ECDC/WHO 2014). Little is known about the impact of such a lifelong infection diagnosis on lives that are already disrupted by migration. In this paper, we assess the impact of HIV diagnosis on activity, union, well-being among African migrants living in France, the second group most affected by HIV after MSM. We compare it with the impact of the diagnosis of Hepatitis B, another lifelong infection affecting African migrants.MethodsWe use the ANRS PARCOURS survey, a retrospective life-event survey led in 2012–2013 in 74 health structures in Paris greater area which collected 926 life histories of Sub-Saharan migrants living with HIV and 779 with Hepatitis B. We modelled the probability year by year since 18 years of age until data collection to lose one’s activity, to experience a conjugal break up and degradation of well-being and we estimated the impact of migration and of HIV and Hepatitis B diagnoses on these probabilities, after adjustment on other factors, thanks to discrete-time logistic regressions.ResultsMigration entailed loss of activity and conjugal break up, though HIV diagnosis after migration did not statistically impact on these outcomes. Yet HIV diagnosis had a massive negative impact on well-being (aOR = 11.31 [4.64–27.56] for men and 5.75 [2.79–11.86] for women). This negative impact on well-being tended to diminish for persons diagnosed after 2004. The negative impact of HIV diagnosis on African migrants’ well-being seems to be attenuated in the last decade, which hints at a normalization of the subjective experience of HIV diagnosis.

Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders. Migrants, Trans-national Encounters and Identity in Spain by Raquel Vega-Durán

Reviewed by: Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders. Migrants, Trans-national Encounters and Identity in Spain by Raquel Vega-Durán Cristián H. Ricci Vega-Durán, Raquel. Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders. Migrants, Trans-national Encounters and Identity in Spain. Maryland: Bucknell, 2016. 260 pp. Raquel Vega-Durán's book is erudite, well-researched, intelligent, and persuasive. Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders comes to complement Susan Martin-Márquez's Disorientations (2008), Daniel Flesler's The Return of the Moor (2011), Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo's Memories of the Maghreb (2012), and my own ¡Hay moros en la costa! (2014). Emigrant Dreams' strength is the study of migrations to Spain as portrayed in literature, art and film, comprehending writers, film-makers, and artists from Spain, Equatorial Guinea, and Latin America. On the other side, one can argue that Vega-Durán's book lacks the point of view of Moroccan cultural production in Castilian and Catalan. For example, Vega-Durán vaguely mentions the works of Najat El Hachmi (Moroccan/Riffian-Catalan writer who won the Ramon Llull Prize in 2008 with L'últim patriarca). At any rate, Vega-Durán's choice to analyze books, film, and art from Spain is understandable insofar as Martin-Márquez, Flesler, Campoy Cubillo, and I have already explored the cultural relationship between Spain and the former colonies in Africa from a comparative point of view. As the author expresses in the Introduction, her research is motivated by the amnesia of the Spanish society about its own migratory history: "One force working against this amnesia is Spanish fiction, film, and art, which have increasingly found inspiration in the encounters between Spaniards and migrants" (vii). [End Page 737] A unique feature of Emigrant Dreams is how the author digs in the history of Spain from medieval times, the presence of Arabic and Jewish cultures in the Peninsula, and the claims for unity during the reign of the Catholic Kings, Franco's regime, and la transición. Moreover, the book moves effortlessly from canonical to non-canonical texts. Vega-Durán's book explores how present-day migrations are making Spain's own conceptions readjust and develop. Aiming at analyzing how Spanish identities are constructed through edgy encounters with the Other, each chapter of the book analyzes the stages of migrants' journeys: outside Spain, at the border, and upon arrival. The first chapter of the book explores the articulation of the departures of the migrants, offering a historical background for the principal Spanish emigration waves. Vega Durán's work pays special attention to how the Peninsular field of cultural production informs the representation of past and present Spanish history. In this chapter, the author analyzes numerous letter exchanges between Spanish emigrants in the Americas and their homeland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The study of this historical journey through correspondence serves to reveal the process of amnesia ("pact of forgetting," [xxvii]) about Spain's past as an emigrant country. Later, in the same chapter, Vega-Durán interprets common experiences of displacement that takes the Other as a vehicle of self-understanding. The latter is accomplished by analyzing modern/contemporary texts of fiction, and history, as well as photography and film The second and third chapters deal with the second stage of the migrant's journey, the crossing. Both chapters are devoted to the treatment of border and border crossing in Spanish fiction, film, and art. In the second chapter, the author focuses on the two Spanish enclaves in Africa: Ceuta and Melilla. Vega-Durán traces the history of the fences built around the two cities, the reclaiming of several unoccupied islands by Morocco, and Spain's militaristic reaction. By recounting the novel-testimony of Senegalese Mahmound Traoré and Bruno Le Dantec, "Dem ak xabaar." Partir et raconteur: Récit d'un clandestine en route vers l' Europe (2012), Vega-Durán gives voice to the testimonies of Sub-Saharan migrants, acknowledging that the border between Morocco and Spain is not the only obstacle migrants encounter. In this chapter, the author could have mentioned the works of Laila Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits; Pasqual Moreno Torregrosa and Mohamed El Gheryb, Dormir al raso...

Recent Historical Migrations Have Shaped the Gene Pool of Arabs and Berbers in North Africa.

North Africa is characterized by its diverse cultural and linguistic groups and its genetic heterogeneity. Genomic data has shown an amalgam of components mixed since pre-Holocean times. Though no differences have been found in uniparental and classical markers between Berbers and Arabs, the two main ethnic groups in the region, the scanty genomic data available have highlighted the singularity of Berbers. We characterize the genetic heterogeneity of North African groups, focusing on the putative differences of Berbers and Arabs, and estimate migration dates. We analyze genome-wide autosomal data in five Berber and six Arab groups, and compare them to Middle Easterns, sub-Saharans, and Europeans. Haplotype-based methods show a lack of correlation between geographical and genetic populations, and a high degree of genetic heterogeneity, without strong differences between Berbers and Arabs. Berbers enclose genetically diverse groups, from isolated endogamous groups with high autochthonous component frequencies, large homozygosity runs and low effective population sizes, to admixed groups with high frequencies of sub-Saharan and Middle Eastern components. Admixture time estimates show a complex pattern of recent historical migrations, with a peak around the 7th century C.E. coincident with the Arabization of the region; sub-Saharan migrations since the 1st century B.C. in agreement with Roman slave trade; and a strong migration in the 17th century C.E., coincident with a huge impact of the trans-Atlantic and trans-Saharan trade of sub-Saharan slaves in the Modern Era. The genetic complexity found should be taken into account when selecting reference groups in population genetics and biomedical studies.

Crisis, (re-)informalization processes and protest: The case of Barcelona

In response to the economic crisis in Southern European cities, citizens have turned to political unrest. This article analyzes these responses in terms of the return of ‘reciprocity practices’ parallel to forms of informality more commonly seen in cities of the Global South. Citizen self-organization to cover basic needs can be read as a strategy of resistance similar to that identified as quiet encroachment; but to the extent that it is politicized, it also becomes part of the political struggle for rights. Through the case of Barcelona, this article analyzes how social groups are politicizing their survival practices, using the case of sub-Saharan migrants living in abandoned factories in the city. The article’s aim is to show how in the context of weakening citizenship rights, there is a growth of informal practices that become unevenly politicized among different groups.

Concealed by darkness: interactions between predatory bats and nocturnally migrating songbirds illuminated by DNA sequencing.

Recently, several species of aerial-hawking bats have been found to prey on migrating songbirds, but details on this behaviour and its relevance for bird migration are still unclear. We sequenced avian DNA in feather-containing scats of the bird-feeding bat Nyctalus lasiopterus from Spain collected during bird migration seasons. We found very high prey diversity, with 31 bird species from eight families of Passeriformes, almost all of which were nocturnally flying sub-Saharan migrants. Moreover, species using tree hollows or nest boxes in the study area during migration periods were not present in the bats' diet, indicating that birds are solely captured on the wing during night-time passage. Additional to a generalist feeding strategy, we found that bats selected medium-sized bird species, thereby assumingly optimizing their energetic cost-benefit balance and injury risk. Surprisingly, bats preyed upon birds half their own body mass. This shows that the 5% prey to predator body mass ratio traditionally assumed for aerial hunting bats does not apply to this hunting strategy or even underestimates these animals' behavioural and mechanical abilities. Considering the bats' generalist feeding strategy and their large prey size range, we suggest that nocturnalbat predation may have influenced the evolution of bird migration strategies and behaviour.

Die Ökonomie des Zwischenlandes.

The following article is based on my fieldwork in Morocco and represents anthropological data collected amongst undocumented sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco. They want to enter Europe in search for a better life for themselves and to provide financial support for their families. Due to heavy border security control and repression, they find themselves trapped at the gates of Europe, where they are trying to survive by engaging in various economic activities in the informal sector. The article begins with an overview of the European migration politics in Africa and the geopolitical and historical context of Morocco, in light of the externalization of European border control. I will then analyze the various economic sectors, in which sub-Saharan migrations are active, as well as smuggling networks, informal camps and remittances, on which they largely depend due to the exclusion from the national job market.

Factors Associated with HIV Status Disclosure in HIV-Infected Sub-Saharan Migrants Living in France and Successfully Treated with Antiretroviral Therapy: Results from the ANRS-VIHVO Study.

To estimate rates and identify correlates of HIV disclosure in migrants from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) successfully treated, a sub-analysis was conducted in HIV-1 native SSA migrants, living in France with undetectable viral load on antiretroviral, included in the VIHVO adherence study. Logistic regression models assessed factors associated with HIV disclosure. Among 246 individuals (40% male, median age 41), 79% of those in a steady heterosexual partnership (n=167) had disclosed their status to their partner, 55% of the total 246 to a relative, and 33% to (an)other person(s). Disclosure to one's steady partner was associated with a follow-up duration since HIV diagnosis of more than 5years, a higher literacy level, a better social context and marital status. Women were more likely to disclose their HIV status to relatives. Interventions targeting this population should be provided to improve disclosure which in turn ensures better social support, testing of the partner and lower rates of undiagnosed HIV.

Access to employment among African migrant women living with HIV in France: opportunities and constraints

ABSTRACTHIV in France particularly affects sub-Saharan migrants as they accounted for 31% of the new diagnoses in 2013. The objective of this study is to investigate the access to and the experience of employment among migrant women living with HIV in France. We use a mixed-method approach. The quantitative data come from the ANRS Parcours study, a life-event survey conducted in 2012–2013 in 70 health centres which collected year-by-year detailed information on living conditions about 755 sub-Saharan women migrants in the greater Paris region (470 with HIV and 285 without HIV). The qualitative data have been collected independently in the same region through socio-ethnographic observations and interviews conducted in 8 HIV-positive migrant organisations and among 35 women-members from 2011 to 2013. Two main results are noteworthy. First, being HIV-positive unexpectedly gives sub-Saharan migrant women a quicker access to employment thanks to the social support they find in migrant organisations: in the third year in France in median (versus 5th year among HIV-negative group). This effect of being HIV-positive on the access to employment remains all things being equal in a discrete-time logistic regression (aOR [95% CI] HIV+: 1.4[1.1;1.8]). Second, their employment situation remains strongly shaped by the racial division of work existing in France and they develop individual strategies to negotiate this constraint: for example, temporary jobs and working as health mediators. The type of jobs they find, mainly in the care sector, force them to carefully hide their HIV status because they fear discrimination at work. Not only migrant women endure structural discrimination in a segmented labour market, but they also anticipate HIV-related discrimination related to caring activities. Thus, the design and implementation of programmes that address stigma should consider structural discrimination to improve PLWHA’s working experiences.

Political Activism Between Journey and Settlement: Irregular Migrant Mobilisation in Morocco

ABSTRACTResearch on irregular migrants’ political mobilisation focuses particularly on Western countries, conceptualised as final destinations for migrants, and documents how irregular migrants claim rights despite high risks involved. Based on a qualitative research in Morocco, the article explores the conditions under which individual journeys, allegedly to Europe, give rise to political activism by irregular migrants. Thus, it contributes to the literature on irregular migrants’ political mobilisation as well as on clandestine journeys. Morocco, identified with “transit migration” at the periphery of the EU, has been subjected to the externalisation of EU migration policies since the early 1990s. Taking a critical approach to the concept of “transit country”, the article highlights the implications of the term on migrants’ lived experiences of the journey and of settlement, which have encouraged a pro-regularisation movement in Morocco. Facing violent practices, sub-Saharan migrants established informal associations and forged alliances with emerging local and transnational civil society actors. The framing of migrants’ demands in relation to the Moroccan democratisation process, African identity, and the Moroccan emigration experience reinforced such alliances and their demands of regularisation. As a partial response to emerging critiques, the Moroccan government announced a new migratory approach and a regularisation campaign implemented throughout 2014. The analysis of migrant mobilisation in Morocco thus provides an important case to trace processes enabling irregular migrants to gain political voice, even in contexts where irregular migration is highly criminalised and stigmatised.

Is hardship during migration a determinant of HIV infection? Results from the ANRS PARCOURS study of sub-Saharan African migrants in France.

Objectives:In Europe, sub-Saharan African migrants are a key population for HIV infection. We analyse how social hardships during settlement in France shape sexual partnerships and HIV risk.Design:PARCOURS is a life-event survey conducted in 2012–2013 in 74 health-care facilities in the Paris region, among three groups of sub-Saharan migrants: 926 receiving HIV care (296 acquired HIV in France), 779 with chronic hepatitis B, and 763 with neither HIV nor hepatitis B (reference group).Methods:Hardships (lack of residence permit, economic resources and housing) and sexual partnerships were documented for each year since arrival in France. For each sex, reported sexual partnerships were compared by group and their associations with hardships each year analysed with mixed-effects logistic regression models.Results:Hardships were frequent: more than 40% had lived a year or longer without a residence permit, and more than 20% without stable housing. Most of the migrants had nonstable and concurrent partnerships, more frequent among those who acquired HIV in France compared with reference group, as were casual partnerships among men (76.7 vs. 54.2%; P = 0.004) and women (52.4 vs. 30.5%; P = 0.02), concurrent partnerships among men (69.9 vs. 45.8%; P = 0.02), and transactional partnerships among women (8.6 vs. 2.3%; P = 0.006). Hardship increased risky behaviours: in women, lacking a residence permit increased casual and transactional partnerships [resp. odds ratio (OR) = 2.01(1.48–2.72) and OR = 6.27(2.25–17.44)]. Same trends were observed for lacking stable housing [OR = 3.71(2.75–5.00) and OR = 10.58 (4.68–23.93)].Conclusion:Hardships faced by migrants increase HIV risks. Women, especially during the period without stable housing, appear especially vulnerable.

Loretta E. Bass: African Immigrant Families in Another France

The book tackles a pressing social issue, namely the incorporation of sub-Saharan migrants and their children in France. Confirming other studies, the author finds that sub-Saharan migrants and their children are at a social and economic disadvantage due to discrimination and racism. Nevertheless, she shows that they adopt a French sense of belonging. The formula ‘‘French on the inside, African on the out’’ summarizes this situation of differential incorporation, wherein migrants and their children integrate in terms of identity formation, but face obstacles to socioeconomic integration, especially in their access to the labor market or even public services. The words ‘‘Another France’’ in the book title, an expression used by one of the interviewees, point to the fact that sub-Saharan migrants and their children do not have the same opportunities as others in French society. However, Bass stresses that they do not form a homogeneous group and contends that religion makes a difference in how people react to external constraints. In particular, she suggests that Evangelical churches offer a better social environment than Catholic churches and mosques, offering opportunities for social encounters that protect from isolation, and providing information to migrants and their children on how to better access various resources (housing, work, day care, etc.). The book has a point to make. It adopts a critical view of French universalism and secularism, seeing it as an ‘‘ostrich policy,’’ and concludes with a set of practical recommendations to facilitate inclusion by recognizing diversity. They include the ‘‘need to provide an accurate count and acknowledge those of immigrant descent after the first generation.’’ This recommendation refers back to a section of the book (pp. 29–31) that asserts that there are no statistics in France based on origin and that offers a rather

Migrants and Refugees: Christian Faith and the Globalization of Solidarity

Abstract This article examines how Pope Francis's Evangelii Gauclium, WCC's Together towards Life, and Third Lausanne Congress' Cape Town Commitment bring out three interrelated and overlapping dimensions of mission. When viewed in age of migration, these include a threefold process of denunciation, annunciation, and promotion. Evangelii Gauclium speaks of denunciation of a globalization of indifference that has made us unresponsive to plight of migrant poor. Together towards Life speaks about annunriation of God of life through a renewed commitment to justice and peace. The Cape Town Commitment speaks about promotion of reign of Jesus' kingdom through love and service, especially for those like migrants who are poor and marginalized. Underneath collective vision of these three voices, a more fundamental migration urges churches to move from established institutional comfort zones into new territories of risk, vulnerability, and possibility. While divisions remain, new strategies are emerging to engage in a common faith, a common humanity, and a common care for those considered least and last in human community. ********** In spring of 2011, a group of sub-Saharan migrants departed by boat from Libya in hope of fleeing violence in their homeland and finding refuge on European shores. As they departed coast of Africa and headed north, they were intercepted by Italian authorities, who escorted their ship to a nearby port. En route, ship's rudder broke, boat drifted, and it crashed into rocks on nearby island of Lampedusa. Many of migrants jumped into water, but because they were unable to swim, many of them drowned. In recent years tiny island of Lampedusa has become almost synonymous with maritime disasters involving migrants and refugees. Newspaper headlines give us a window into scale of human tragedy: New Migrant Boat Disaster Off Lampedusa; (1) Die as Burning Boat Capsizes Off Italy; (2)700 Migrants Feared Dead in Mediterranean Shipwreck. (3) The International Organization of Migration estimates that in 2014, more than 3,000 migrants died in Mediterranean region in places like Lampedusa. Add to these more than 40,000 documented migrant deaths globally since year 2000--although actual numbers are most certainly higher than these official estimates--and loss of life comes into even sharper focus. (4) Stories abound from around world about migrants who die in deserts, freeze in mountains, suffocate in train boxcars, and drown in rivers and seas. The scope of issue has become so widespread, and its implications so far reaching, that some scholars have referred to our own times as the age of (5) Not only does migration affect sending communities, but it shapes contours of mission as well. As church seeks to be a voice of life at this time in history, it must continually ask, what is relationship between bad news associated with these events and good news of gospel? This article seeks to look at responses of various Christian communities to growing challenges posed by international migration. In particular it will look at Evangelii Gaudium (EG) by Pope Francis, Together towards Life (TTL) by World Council of Churches (WCC), and The Cape Town Commitment (CTC) by Lausanne Movement. These documents not only share common vision of reaching out to person of Christ in person of immigrant, but they also point to how migration is transforming our understanding of Christian faith, Christian discipleship, and Christian mission today. My argument here is that amidst growing fragmentation of society manifested in phenomenon of migration, heart of Christian message speaks of call to globalize solidarity, beginning with most vulnerable and neglected members of human community. …

The first collective protest of black African migrants in postcolonial France (1960–1975): a struggle for housing and rights

ABSTRACTThe study of the political activism of black African diasporas in France after the independence era remains a neglected area of research. This paper fills a gap in the literature by exploring the first notable postcolonial protests in the country by sub-Saharan migrants. The struggle of black African workers against their dire housing conditions opened up a ‘cycle of collective action’ that led to the better-known Sonacotra migrant hostels (foyers) rent strike of 1975–1980. Even before the Sonacotra strike, however, black African workers had been able to call on the authorities from both their origin and residence countries and to mobilize transnational networks in order to support their demands. This article provides the first comprehensive historical study of this decisive period. It highlights how ethnic ties are intertwined with political and social ones, focusing on the solidarities that these migrants developed in political networks and in their neighbourhoods.

The BUMIDOM in Paris and its suburbs: contradictions in a state migration policy, 1960s–1970s

ABSTRACTIn 1962, the BUMIDOM, a state agency, was founded to organize and increase migration flows from the West Indies and La Reunion to the metropole. A major difference with the immigration from Sub-Saharan Africa was that, as French citizens, the migrants from the DOM were encouraged to come to metropole. Paris was a pivotal place where they were welcomed thanks to the creation of community centers. But experiences of living in the capital city also exposed the hardship and contradictions of this migration. Indeed, the egalitarian and republican discourse generated hope among migrants while the living conditions, particularly housing, were found to be disappointing. For these migrants, citizenship was not only formal but it enabled them to define places in Paris, such as the community centers, as specifically West Indian or Reunionese. These were spaces where a regional identity was built in-between a racialized definition and the2017 celebration of cultural particulars. It also expressed an irreducible difference between Sub-Saharan migrants on the one hand and West Indian and Reunionese ones on the other. Then, the common experience of discrimination was not enough to create a unified representation of a Black Paris beyond legal statuses and geographical origins.

Reunifying versus Living Apart Together across Borders: A Comparative Analysis of sub-Saharan Migration to Europe

This article studies the process of reunification in Europe among “living apart together across borders” (LATAB) couples of African origin (DR Congo, Ghana, and Senegal). Couple reunion is conceived as a multilevel process, wherein state selection (through immigration policies in destination countries) interacts with self-selection (at the couple level), under influence of the social context at origin. Based on event history analyses of the MAFE project, empirical results show that LATAB is a majority and durable living arrangement for sub-Saharan migrants, that the odds if reunifying depend on gender and inter-generational relationships, and that restrictive contexts at destination do not deter couple reunion.

Risk factors for adherence failure in HIV-infected sub-Saharan migrants living in France and travelling back to their native country

Risk factors for adherence failure in HIV-infected sub-Saharan migrants living in France and travelling back to their native country

Sociogenèse des Églises pentecôtistes africaines en France

Despite the growing interest in Pentecostalism in a migratory context, studies on Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in France remain minimal. However, on account of sub-Saharan migrations, notably of Congolese, these Churches have grown significantly over the last three decades. This growth forms part of the restructuring of French Protestantism and, more generally, of the globalization of the contemporary world. This article adopts a historiographic and sociographic rather than ethnographic perspective. The author reviews the processes that led to the formation of these Churches in France during the 1980s by means of a joint analysis of the roles played by the Congolese migrations, which served as a crucible for the identity politics of these Churches, and by an Indian minister, whose influence and connection to the faith gospel networks have contributed to the internationalization of the French migrant context.

Sexual violence and sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco: a community-based participatory assessment using respondent driven sampling.

BackgroundThe European Union contracted Morocco to regulate migration from so-called “transit migrants” from Morocco to Europe via the European Neighbourhood Policy. Yet, international organisations signal that human, asylum and refugee rights are not upheld in Morocco and that many sub-Saharan migrants suffer from ill-health and violence. Hence, our study aimed at 1) investigating the nature of violence that sub-Saharan migrants experience around and in Morocco, 2) assessing which determinants they perceive as decisive and 3) formulating prevention recommendations.MethodsApplying Community-Based Participatory Research, we trained twelve sub-Saharan migrants as Community Researchers to conduct in-depth interviews with peers, using Respondent Driven Sampling. We used Nvivo 8 to analyse the data. We interpreted results with Community Researchers and the Community Advisory Board and commonly formulated prevention recommendations.ResultsAmong the 154 (60 F-94 M) sub-Saharan migrants interviewed, 90% reported cases of multiple victimizations, 45% of which was sexual, predominantly gang rape. Seventy-nine respondents were personally victimized, 41 were forced to witness how relatives or co-migrants were victimized and 18 others knew of peer victimisation. Severe long lasting ill-health consequences were reported while sub-Saharan victims are not granted access to the official health care system. Perpetrators were mostly Moroccan or Algerian officials and sub-Saharan gang leaders who function as unofficial yet rigorous migration professionals at migration ‘hubs’. They seem to proceed in impunity. Respondents link risk factors mainly to their undocumented and unprotected status and suggest that migrant communities set-up awareness raising campaigns on risks while legal and policy changes enforcing human rights, legal protection and human treatment of migrants along with severe punishment of perpetrators are politically lobbied for.ConclusionSub-Saharan migrants are at high risk of sexual victimization and subsequent ill-health in and around Morocco. Comprehensive cross-border and multi-level prevention actions are urgently called for. Given the European Neighbourhood Policy, we deem it paramount that the European Union politically cares for these migrants’ lives and health, takes up its responsibility, drastically changes migration regulation into one that upholds human rights beyond survival and enforces all authorities involved to restore migrants’ lives worthy to be lived again.