Photo by Stephanie Maher. All rights reserved.
When we hear about irregular migration from Africa to Europe, migrants are frequently portrayed as victims of human traffickers who exploit vulnerable people on the move. Migrants have even been called ‘modern-day slaves’ in need of humanitarian protection. But is this an accurate assessment? Are irregular migrants today really enslaved, or are they simply trying to make their way through borders that have become progressively securitised?
In my work with repatriated clandestine migrants in Senegal, I find that people do not see themselves as victims, but rather as undertaking risky journeys – including paying facilitators – in order to obtain a better life. That migrants today face exploitation as they cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean is clear. But this is the result of increasingly restrictive migration controls, and not the presence of ‘modern-day slave traders’. Enslavement, which implies forced movement, is not how my research participants would characterise their travels. Instead, they describe their journeys as linked to a long and profound history of mobile labour migration to Europe. In what follows, I explore some of this history as a way to challenge the idea that migrants are duped or coerced into passage by what some call ‘slaver traders’.
