THE catastrophe faced by people fleeing the Middle East and Africa to reach Europe should not be described as a “migrant crisis”, a leading development charity has warned.
A report by Global Justice Now urged politicians, commentators and the media to avoid using the term as it was misleading and “demonised” those caught up in the situation.
The National’s policy is to avoid using the term, however, the BBC, the UK’s most influential news outlet, controversially does.
Global Justice Now insists the disaster should be seen as crisis of inequality, war, and climate change.
Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice Now, said: “What we call a ‘migrant crisis’, is actually a crisis of global injustice caused by war, poverty and inequality.
“To demonise those making a rational choice on the part of themselves, their family and their community, obscures the truth. Migration is bringing those of us in Europe face-to-face with the reality of the brutal and unjust world our leaders have constructed.”
The briefing said war and inequality were key drivers in the situation and that the conflicts along Europe’s borders were in part caused or exacerbated by the actions of Europeans.
“People are dying and being forced to leave their homes. Countries in Europe have a degree of complicity in these conflicts through either their geo-politics or through the sales of weapons to the countries in conflict,” it added.
“With 62 people having more than half the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population, more people are being forced to feel poverty.”
It also blamed climate change for the crisis.
“Increased drought, famine, flooding and natural disasters are already forcing people to move across borders,” it said.
The briefing is published today following a day of action across Europe on Saturday against detention centres and argues that fighting inequality, climate change and unfair trade regimes are essential in dealing with the root causes of the issue.
It also highlighted evidence which has indicated the positive economic impact of immigration and said official figures suggested that key public services like the NHS across the UK rely considerably on foreign workers and would face a crisis without immigration.
The Global Justice Now briefing lists a number of measures that should be introduced, including ending the arms trade, ending immigration detention and expanding the European Union’s Schengen zone, which allows the free movement of people.
It also calls for an amnesty on undocumented asylum seekers.
“It’s unacceptable that people from rich countries are free to go almost anywhere in the world while people from the global south are denied freedom of movement, even when they are fleeing war and extreme poverty,” said Alex Scrivener, the author of the briefing report and policy officer of Global Justice Now.
“A right that only exists for the rich is not a right at all. There’s one rule for ‘expat’ Europeans and North Americans and another for the rest of the world. This is apartheid on a global scale. We need to work towards free movement for everyone.”
Dearden added: “We cannot build a decent society on fear and hatred. We are told that the principles of free movement, solidarity between members and respect of human rights are at the foundation of the EU. But the value of these principles are dramatically undermined if they are only extended to a privileged minority who arbitrarily hold a particular passport.”
A spokesman for Global Justice Now said: “Media outlets need to acknowledge and represent the reality that people are often migrating as a result of crises like conflict, poverty and inequality and climate change.
“The more you associate the crisis with migrants, the more you are implying that they are responsible for the situation. Unfortunately western governments are often implicated in the variety of crises that are forcing people to flee their homes.”
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that more than 1,011,700 people arrived in Europe by sea last year, and almost 34,900 by land, compared to 280,000 arrivals by land and sea for the whole of 2014.
Most of those heading for Greece have taken the relatively short voyage from Turkey to the islands of Kos, Chios, Lesbos and Samos, often in flimsy rubber dinghies or small wooden boats.
According to the IOM, more than 3,770 people were reported to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean last year.
Most died on the crossing from north Africa to Italy, and more than 800 died in the Aegean crossing from Turkey to Greece.
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