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Nigerian migrants struggle to reintegrate after Libya ordeal
BENIN CITY, Nigeria, Sept 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Emerging from her ordeal,
Gloria considers herself “privileged”. Last year, the 26-year-old left
Nigeria with four other women, dreaming of a better life in Europe.
On a tortuous journey, three of the five friends died before reaching
Libya, where the two survivors were stranded for almost a year. Now only
Gloria is back home in Nigeria.
She dreamed of being a fashion designer but now sews synthetic tracksuits
in a shabby workshop in Benin City, southern Nigeria, for 15,000 naira a
month ($41.50, 38 euros).
“After transport, the money is almost finished”, she says.
Still, she adds quickly, she “thanks God for having a job”.
Her employment is part of a training programme, set up by the local
government of southern Edo State — the departure point for most Nigerian
migrants.
Gloria is one of nearly 14,000 young Nigerians to have returned from Libya
since 2017 under a United Nations voluntary repatriation programme.
She and the other returnees quoted in this story asked not to be
identified by their real names.
She is “not asking for too much”, just a roof over her head and to be able
to eat, Gloria tells AFP.
But she blames herself for daring to dream that life could be better
elsewhere and believing the smugglers’ promises that they would reach Europe
within two weeks.
– Broke and broken –
In Libya, prospects of crossing the Mediterranean vanished, after a
tightening of European Union immigration policies.
Many spend months, even years stranded in Libya, sold as slaves by their
smugglers.
But once back home in Nigeria, life is even more difficult than before:
saddled with debt, struggling to find work, broken by their treatment at the
hands of the traffickers and by their failed dreams.
Human Rights Watch highlighted the “continuing anguish” that returnees
face.
Many suffer long-term mental and physical health problems as well as
social stigma on returning to Nigeria, a report released last month said.
Government-run centres tasked with looking after them are poorly funded
and “unable to meet survivors’ multiple needs for long-term comprehensive
assistance”, it added.
Edo State government has set up a support programme which is rare in
Nigeria.
The state hosts some 4,800 of the nearly 14,000 returnees — most aged 17
to 35 and with no diploma or formal qualifications.
Under the scheme, they can travel for free to Benin City, Edo’s capital,
stay two nights in a hotel, receive an hour of psychological support and the
equivalent of a 100-euro allowance.
It barely moves the needle for those starting again but is enough to stoke
envy in a country where state aid is scarce and 83 million people live in
extreme poverty.
– Stigma –
Showing potential students around, Ukinebo Dare, of the Edo Innovates
vocational training programme, says many youngsters grumble that returnees
get “preferential treatment”.
In modern classrooms in Benin City, a few hundred students learn to
“code”, do photography, start a small business and learn marketing in courses
open to all.
“Classes are both for the youth and returnees, (be)cause we don’t want the
stigma to affect them,” Dare said.
“It’s a priority for us to give youth, who are potential migrants,
opportunities in jobs they can be interested in.”
According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, 55 percent of the
under-35s were unemployed at the end of last year.
Tike, now 28, had a low paying job before leaving Nigeria in February 2017
but since returning from Libya says his life is “more, more, more harder than
before”.
Although he returned “physically” in December 2017 he says his “mindset
was fully corrupted”.
“I got paranoid. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t sleep, always
looking out if there is any danger,” he said, at the tiny flat he shares with
his girlfriend, also back from Libya, and their four-month-old daughter.
– Crime –
A few months after returning, and with no psychological support, Tike
decided to train to be a butcher.
But, more than a year since he registered for help with reintegration
programmes, including one run by the International Organization for
Migration, he has not found a job and has no money to start his own business.
“We, the youth, we have no job. What we have is cultism (occult gangs),”
Tike says.
“People see it as a way of getting money, an excuse for getting into
crime.”
Since last year, when Nigeria was still in its longest economic recession
in decades, crime has increased in the state of Edo, according to official
data.
“Returnees are seen as people who are coming to cause problems in the
community,” laments Lilian Garuba, of the Special Force against Illegal
Migration.
“They see them as failure, and not for what they are: victims.”
– Debt spiral –
Peter, 24, was arrested a few days after his return.
His mother had borrowed money from a neighbourhood lender to raise the
1,000 euros needed to pay his smuggler.
“As soon as he heard I was back, he came to see her. She couldn’t pay (the
debt), so I was arrested by the police,” he told AFP, still shaking.
Financially crippled, his mother had to borrow more money from another
lender to pay off her debts.
Peter’s last trip was already his second attempt.
“When I first came back from Libya, I thought I was going to try another
country. I tried, but in Morocco it was even worse and thank God I was able
to return to Nigeria,” he said, three weeks after getting back.
“Now I have nothing, nothing,” he said, his voice breaking.
“All I think about is ‘kill yourself’, but what would I gain from it? I
can’t do that to my mother.”
BSS/AFP/RY/1735 hrs