International Development Committee
Oral evidence: Forced displacement in Africa, HC 1433
Tuesday 6 November 2018
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 6 November 2018.
Members present: Stephen Twigg (Chair); Mrs Pauline Latham; Chris Law; Henry Smith.
Questions 68 - 99
I: Marta Foresti, Director of the Human Mobility Initiative, Overseas Development Institute; Professor Laura Hammond, Department of Development Studies, SOAS; Professor Gaim Kibreab, Course Director, Refugee Studies, London South Bank University.
II: Garad Mohamed, Student at Leeds Beckett University and former Somali refugee (resident in Dadaab Refugee Camp 1991-2010).
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Marta Foresti, Professor Laura Hammond and Professor Gaim Kibreab.
Q68 Chair: Good morning. Can I welcome our first panel this morning? We have 45 minutes with you, and we are seeking to cover eight areas. Thank you for joining us. Please, when you first answer, give a brief introduction. Let me start by asking a broad opener: how do you see the Department for International Development’s work on migration and forced displacement fitting with the wider UK Government policy and strategy on migration, including its illegal migration strategy?
Marta Foresti: My name is Marta Foresti. I work at the Overseas Development Institute, where I am the director of the Human Mobility Initiative, and focus on migration. Thank you for this opportunity. It is very important to focus specifically on the coherence of policies across the whole spectrum of human mobility, from full displacement to all different forms of legal and illegal migration. I believe that the Department for International Development is playing an increasingly important role. It is fair to say that until the so-called crisis of 2015, the UK and many other countries’ development policies in the main ignored the realities of human mobility, and did not take it into account in most of their practices, and so it is extremely encouraging to see it so central to DFID’s policies and practice.
There are at least three areas where the UK can do even better. There is one thing the UK and DFID should not do; they need to be very careful not to give aid in exchange for the promise to curb irregular migration, so to countries that have high rates of so-called irregular migration. We know it does not work. We know it risks, if anything, having the opposite effect: as low-income countries develop, more people tend to migrate, in the short term at least. This really risks altering and misinterpreting the whole purpose of aid, the targeting of aid to those who need it the most, for poverty reduction and economic and social development priorities.
The second thing that DFID can and should do—and is doing increasingly well—is to make sure that this newly found emphasis on migration as part of these development policies is integrating what DFID does best, which is being a leading international actor on international development, and having influence and resources to put to good use to reduce poverty and foster development. What I mean is that there is a risk that we create as a result of political imperatives a whole new set of objectives that are specifically around curbing irregular migration, while the sensible thing to do is to take the reality of human mobility into account in what DFID does in terms of economic and social development in different parts of the world—specifically in Africa, where DFID has a long history of affecting.
Third, and last, there is an emphasis at the moment, in certainly DFID’s policies and a lot of HMG positions, to focus on countries of origin in an attempt to address the root causes of immigration and forced displacement, be it conflict or poverty. My view is that DFID could do a lot more in so-called transit countries. Once people have decided to move, for different reasons, or are forced to do so, we know that most people stay in the region, if we are talking about Africa in particular. There are a number of neighbouring countries that people at least transit to, some of which are middle-income, where concrete opportunities might exist for people to enter the market, to access basic services. Some of these countries are countries where DFID and the UK have a long history of influence and of impact. I am thinking of Nigeria, Ghana and many others. DFID and the UK should focus a lot more of their attention on the potential of aid making a difference in transit countries for those who are on the move, to avoid onward movement, particularly where it involves risking lives.
Chair: We are going to return to some specific African examples in later questioning, but thank you very much for that.
Professor Hammond: My name is Laura Hammond. I am a Professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. I just have a couple of other hats that may be relevant to today’s discussion, which I will mention. One is as a leader of something called the Research and Evidence Facility for the EU trust fund. If you have questions around the trust fund, I can come back to that. I am also a challenge leader for the Global Challenges Research Fund on conflict and displacement.
There are three points that I would make with regard to this question. In a sense, there is a lack of joined-up overall policy on migration, which I do not necessarily think is a bad thing. There is a real danger of instrumentalising development policy in the interests of fulfilling migration objectives. We know that particularly when we are talking about forced displacement and forced migration, we are talking about people who are compelled to move because they have no choice, as they lack safety. Really, in many cases they literally fear for their lives. The objective of bringing down numbers of people coming into the UK should not be muddied with issues of providing protection to people who really need it. Those are the obligations of the UK under international law, and that should be the objective of development: to think about the ways of attacking or confronting the drivers of forced displacement, and that is where development can really make a difference.
One of the real strengths of DFID historically has always been that it is really a thinking donor, if you like, and it really thinks very carefully, particularly about social protection, whether that is prior to displacement along the journey—and I would agree with Marta that that is an area that needs much more attention—or indeed on destination. We know that the vast majority of displacement that occurs within the developing world generally, and particularly in Africa, stays within the region. It does not move towards Europe. The numbers of people moving to Europe is very small compared with the overall populations of displaced people.
The objective, when you are thinking about development and forced displacement, is to think about why people are moving. They are moving because they lack choice and because they lack safety and security. Therefore development should be aimed at providing both choice, so that there is an option to stay safely, and a kind of security. When you think about it in that way, it changes the question of how you consider and confront irregular migration. It is about addressing both the economic and political drivers of displacement. In that sense, DFID does very well, both in its governance work in terms of addressing human rights problems, weak governance and the capacities of Government to provide their own protection to their own citizens and those within their territories, as well as through its work in various ways to support economic development, so that there are options for people to remain in their regions of origin, if not in their countries of origin. That is not to say that movement is, in and of itself, a bad thing, but certainly coerced displacement is what we want to see diminished.
The final point is just about the very difficult nature of thinking about migration displacement, because we know that most people move for a variety of different reasons, and most people in fact are what we would call “mixed migrants”. There is an element of compulsion or coercion involved in their movement. Sometimes people start moving as economic migrants, but, as Marta says, the risks that emerge along the way mean that by the time they get very far into their journey they are in fact displacees; they are forced migrants. We need to make sure that our development frameworks for addressing that really confront that whole trajectory of displacement.
Professor Kibreab: Both Marta and Laura have been working on these issues more than I have, so I agree with most of what they say. With regard to the extent to which DFID’s work boosts or reinforces UK policy on immigration, if what Marta and Laura said is the case of DFID, there is actually a clear incompatibility. The UK’s immigration policy focuses almost solely on stopping migrants from coming to the UK, and that is consistent with the EU policies. If DFID has defied that policy and has carved out its own, and is trying to provide protection and assistance in contradiction of the UK’s general policy, that is quite a noble effort; I have not seen any evidence for that.
If we are to be honest, the UK and the EU are determined to stop African refugees coming to the European shores. They are committed to do that. They are returning people to Libya, where they are sent to their deaths. If you have been following what has been happening to the refugees in the Libyan refugee camps, the Libyan coast guards, funded by the EU, are the ones who are intercepting people travelling across the Mediterranean sea, and they return them to gangsters, literally, who are aided by EU funds. If DFID has clearly ignored this and is doing something different, that ought to be celebrated. We can comment on that later—whether it is achievable or not—because there is a lot of experience from the past, and we can question whether this is an achievable goal.
Q69 Chair: You have anticipated my supplementary question, which was to highlight the specific case of Libya, which you have already referred to. ICAI, in its review last year, highlighted concerns that some programming—for example, the support for the Libyan coast guard and detention centres—could breach the “do no harm” principle. You have already demonstrated that you believe that remains a serious challenge. Can I perhaps ask Marta if you could comment specifically on that, and how that fits, in a sense, with the more positive answer that you gave more broadly?
Marta Foresti: The case of support for Libya, from the UK and other European countries, is clearly a major challenge, and the risk of doing more harm than good is a real one, as the ICAI review highlighted. I would argue that the Department for International Development has a wealth of experience in similar contexts of deciding whether to engage in the particular countries where institutions are weak or non-existent, in some cases, or contested. The reality is that the only way to go about the decision to engage in this context is to be very careful and extra cautious about the political and conflict analysis, to make sure that an external intervention cannot do more harm.
I would argue that what we saw in Libya is a result of the political pressure to do something about stemming migration flows from Africa; there has been a rush to engage in the context where the risks of doing that harm have been highlighted by ICAI. My understanding is that since the review, that particular recommendation was welcomed and embraced by DFID in full, and it has committed to applying the “do no harm” principle more seriously and more thoroughly.
My view is that although Libya is a particularly complicated context, the UK has the tools to decide whether there is space and opportunity to engage. We have seen on a number of occasions, in Turkey and Libya, situations where European countries have effectively made deals and engaged with countries with the ultimate aim of reducing immigration in ways that have potentially caused harm, and that is something that should be avoided at all costs.
I maintain that it is not dissimilar to the decision that DFID makes when engaging with Somalia or other contexts, where institutions are contested and the conflict is politically driven. The risk is that, as with everything related to immigration in development, the political imperative of stemming irregular immigration from Africa trumps all the good practices that are in place to avoid doing that particular harm.
Q70 Mrs Latham: This is specifically to Laura. You have covered some of it, but maybe you would like to speak a bit more widely. Talking about addressing the root causes of migration—and it is a key feature of the UK aid strategy—your evidence highlights a lack of understanding and evidence in this area. What impact do you think this has had on DFID’s work on migration and displacement?
Professor Hammond: In my evidence, I suggested that the UK’s approach to root causes—it is not only the UK in isolation; it is a common feature among donor states—is to focus on what might be seen as the apolitical or technical drivers of migration, such as climate change and economic instability or stagnation, which are certainly among the drivers of why people are on the move. They do not really explain the key question of irregular migration, which is what we agreed is the thing that really concerns us about people being at risk. The thing that makes people fall into that risk category is much more political. It is about political repression, marginalisation, exclusion, discrimination and whatever, in the variety of different forms that it comes. I work particularly in the Horn of Africa, so you see this in a variety of different counties. There is still a deficit in terms of thinking about the ways in which the political economy of the environments in which people are operating has a direct impact on their ability to stay or to move.
Sometimes their movement and displacement is the problem. Sometimes their immobility and inability to move can also be a difficulty, as we see with, for instance, people who in recent years have not been able to leave Eritrea. Immobility can also be a problem.
A failure to address those kinds of issues is a lost opportunity, in a sense, and it means that sometimes aid money can be directed at trying to limit the numbers of people on the move for economic reasons, or other kinds of aspirational causes, and it is really not going to have an impact on those kinds of movements. Because it is not really taking conscious stock of the political drivers that are behind irregular migration, it is also not having an impact in that regard.
Q71 Mrs Latham: You have said that DFID is not alone, but if we are looking at donors, and particularly DFID, how can they develop a better understanding on the drivers of displacement and ensure that it is translated into policy, not just for DFID but right across Government?
Professor Hammond: They need to be very clear about the particular nature of those drivers of irregularity, to have a better understanding of what the tipping points are, if you like, or what the pressure points are that cause people to be forced to move, and also understand patterns in the moves that people make. People do not typically set off and then immediately go towards Europe. They tend to go to the nearest safe place that they can, in order to maintain their ties to their homeland. Gaim has done a lot of research in that area.
It is only when those opportunities and the safety and security of staying in that place also are diminished that they then seek to move over longer distances. It is about really understanding clearly, not just through academic analysis, and taking seriously those connections between the political work that is done by DFID and the Foreign Office, and understanding the way in which that work has a direct impact on people’s migration choices. Understanding how those choices are made or not made is the key to that.
Q72 Mrs Latham: How would they do that, specifically, across Government?
Professor Hammond: It requires a joined-up approach to Government, which as we know can be a tricky thing. There is every opportunity to be able to do that, though. In the Horn of Africa, DFID and the Foreign Office are very often in the same building and the same offices; they are speaking to each other on a day-to-day basis. There is absolutely no reason that they should not be joined up in that respect. It is harder, perhaps, here in London to have the joined-up nature, but on the ground it can be there.
It is not a perfect solution but the UN in Somalia has moved to a one-UN approach, where the political office and the humanitarian office are combined under one leadership and organisation. There are issues around that in some ways, because humanitarian aid runs the risk of being instrumentalised for political reasons, which we could get into in another way, but it does provide the opportunity to have the learning and understanding around the politics of what is happening in a country and how it impacts people’s migration choices, or non-choices, in a clear way.
Q73 Chris Law: Laura, just to follow on from that, in your evidence you noted that there was a difference in DFID’s contribution that had been made to the strategic vision of the EU trust fund for Africa. I wonder if you could elaborate on that and go into some detail about what that difference is.
Professor Hammond: Right after today I am going to Brussels to address the Operational Committee members, so I regularly go and give briefings on the research that we have been doing at the Research and Evidence Facility, and every six months appear before the entire Operational Committee, of which DFID is a member. I have seen the Committee in action, if you like, interrogating me and interrogating other projects. I know and have spoken to other member states that recognise the leadership that DFID has shown, in terms of thinking about issues like social protection, in which they are much more experienced than many other donors. It is the leadership that it has taken particularly on the Somalia case, for instance, where there have been two major international conferences hosted here in London. DFID has a very nuanced understanding of what is happening in those countries, and that is valued by other member states and contributing countries.
Q74 Chris Law: CARE International argued that the EU trust funds were “not established with a vision to reduce poverty or meet humanitarian needs or human rights, but to stem migration flows to the EU”. Do you agree with this shocking assessment? If so, what impact has that had on the strategic direction and implementation of the fund?
Professor Hammond: I do not think that is the only goal. One of the issues with the trust fund, if I may say, is that with 28 different member states you have, in a sense, 28 different objectives, of exactly what each one wants out of the trust fund.
Clearly there was, if you look at the documents that established the trust fund, a concern for wanting to reduce the numbers of people moving into Europe. Also, because the trust fund is implemented by the Development & Cooperation DG and is implemented through a variety of development actors, there is a much more nuanced understanding of what that money can do on the ground. There is an understanding that it should be addressed particularly toward irregular migration, rather than migration writ large. You cannot take on migration as a whole term to include every single person on the move.
In our Research and Evidence Facility, we have looked at rural and urban migration; we have looked at movement from the Horn of Africa, through Yemen, towards Saudi Arabia and sometimes towards Europe. We have looked at movement of Darfuris out of Sudan, towards Europe as well. Each of those is a slightly different kind of migration group. Where the trust fund has done best—it also has hundreds of different projects—it has been focused on trying to maximise people’s choices about whether to move or not move, and to shore up that sense of protection that they have.
There are other forms of trust fund activities that are more focused on migration control. The difficulties with that approach have been that sometimes they are carried out in isolation from other kinds of social protections, so it is just seen as a gatepost on the border, rather than being joined up very closely to other support for people that would create alternatives to remaining in the region, for instance. Sometimes there is that lack of joined-up nature of some of the trust fund activities.
The final thing I would say about that is that the trust fund is one piece of the overall EU policy, and so very often in the media the trust fund gets lumped in with discussions around the Turkey deal and the Khartoum agreement, and they are not all trust fund activities. The trust fund has not quite figured out how to change that narrative. It is assumptions like that.
Q75 Chris Law: Since you have touched on what the trust fund is being used for, it is being used to fund migration-related programmes in countries with very poor human rights records, notably Eritrea. Do you think this is an appropriate and effective use of UK funds?
Professor Hammond: We should be clear that it has not been used very much in Eritrea, because the Eritrean Government in fact is not particularly interested in having trust fund money spent. There is a youth employment programme going on with some funding.
I do think it is important that the EU and DFID generally remain engaged in countries that have human rights problems, not to give them an apology or an excuse for continuing to carry out those abuses, but if you are not in those countries having those discussions, you have no hope really of having any kind of impact. It is really important to remain engaged, with some conditions, and absolutely with a hard edge of insisting that human rights are respected and that progress is made, which is not always very successful. It is a long process, but it is better to be engaged than not engaged.
Gaim has more immediate experience with Eritrea, so maybe he could speak to that question.
Professor Kibreab: What Laura is saying is completely foreign to my experience. My knowledge is based on Eritrea and Sudan. In Sudan, the trust fund is used to actually reconstruct the Janjaweed, which was an oppressive arm of the Government in Darfur. It is renamed now, and it is actually operating in eastern Sudan. Its job is to stop, detain and return Eritrean asylum seekers from Sudan to Eritrea, and they are using the trust fund. There is a lot written about the abuses and the violations of human rights that are taking place in those countries.
Sudan itself is a major violator of the human rights of its citizens. To provide such a huge amount of money to implement this problem, whose sole function is to stop people from crossing the Sudanese border and return them to Eritrea, to detention or to the indefinite national service, is actually incompatible with what the EU, the UK and any Government calling itself democratic stands for.
Laura’s experience is probably based on Somalia. I do not think it is also true in Somalia. In Ethiopia, there are some promises, but most of the programmes are not implemented. Ethiopia has its own enormous problems to deal with. As an idea, the initiative is great, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It remains to be seen when it is implemented. The Ethiopian programme, as an idea, is great, but it has not been yet implemented, and there is no evidence to show that it is working. I talk to refugees, I work with them on a grassroots level, and there has been no change that they have experienced. We are all speculating.
Q76 Chair: We are going to come to Ethiopia specifically in a moment. You made a point about Sudan and the Janjaweed. Marta, in ODI’s evidence you say that the Khartoum process has approached migration through the lens of criminality, and a recent report by the all-party parliamentary group on Sudan and South Sudan said that the Khartoum process deprioritises human rights in favour of meeting migration targets, which very much fits with what Professor Kibreab has just said. Do you think, Marta, that therefore the UK should reconsider its role in this process?
Marta Foresti: Yes, but not to pull out of anything, but to engage more so than ever before. Particularly with the prospect of the UK no longer being a member of the European Union, having these platforms for dialogue at the regional level across Europe, and Africa in this case—we might come to the global compact for migration later on—would be really important for the UK to engage internationally, and to exercise its leadership and influence on the international stage in the ways that it can do.
The reality of the Khartoum process, and to some extent the trust fund and global compact, and other attempts to co-operate across borders to address the complicated issues of particularly irregular migration, is that they certainly try to do too many things at once, and do not necessarily recognise some of the trade-offs involved.
At the moment, it is fair to say that there is a political landscape in Europe where stemming irregular migration from Africa is certainly high on the agenda of a number of countries. Does it mean that any attempt to address the issues, like Laura just said in relation to the trust fund, is impossible because of that political imperative trumping everything? Not necessarily, and where it can be done within this political space we should try to do sensible things.
In my view, having a regional dialogue between Europe and Africa through the Khartoum process matters. Again, the UK and DFID, because of their expertise and because of their know-how, knowledge, capacity and financial resources, when it comes to international development policies should pay a key role, as it does as a member of the steering board of the process, to recognise the trade-offs that can be involved in spending money as a conditionality for countries to stop people in their tracks, in addition to investing widely in development programmes and policies, enabling countries in ways that can genuinely provide opportunities for forcibly displaced migrants once they are on the move.
In relation to the reports on Darfur and Sudan, you just heard from Gaim a bit more about Sudan. What is interesting about the findings of that work is the recognition and reminder that when we are talking about forcibly displaced people on the move across a number of African countries, we should be careful not to assume that there are just a number of well-known conflict areas with predictable flows from one country to the next, all of a sudden in relation to the conflict playing out. There are unresolved ongoing conflicts and situations of political instability and violence.
It is interesting if you think about Darfur, which was certainly on the agenda a few years ago but which it is fair to say is no longer so these days. The reality, though, is that people still suffer and are subject to abuse and violence, and, going back to what we said earlier, those who then do leave, particularly as they travel through Sudan and then other countries all the way to Europe, may become more and more vulnerable as a result of the actual experience of migration itself. That goes back to the need, rather than focusing all effort on trying to stop irregular migration in the first place, to address the needs, the opportunities and the aspirations of those who are on the journey.
Chair: Thank you. Just to say we have, in half an hour, done the first four questions and we have a quarter of an hour to do the subsequent questions. We need to be briefer with our questions and to have slightly more concise answers. I know it is a massive area.
Q77 Mrs Latham: We are going on to Ethiopia now. How does Ethiopia’s approach to refugees and internally displaced people compare with other neighbouring countries like Kenya and Uganda?
Professor Hammond: Ethiopia has had a changing approach towards its refugee populations, particularly from in the early days of the war with Eritrea, when they had a very hostile and suspicious approach towards refugees. That relationship has thawed and warmed quite a lot in recent years. Refugees tend to be housed, for the most part, in camps, though we know that there is a very large urban refugee population, particularly in Addis Ababa but in some of the other cities as well. There is not an impatience on the part of Ethiopia to close its camps and have refugees go back, in the sense that we have seen very recently in Kenya. The camps are not as closed as they are in Kenya. With the jobs compact, we might now see something about greater thinking in Ethiopia about the idea of integrating refugees into the workforce in some limited capacities.
It is different from Kenya, as I have pointed out. It is also different from Uganda, which has an open camp policy and allows refugees to move in and out between cities and camps. They have also, historically, until very recently, been able to provide land for refugees living in settlements. That capacity is becoming strained by just the sheer number of people coming across from South Sudan, but it is the most open approach towards refugees. I would put Ethiopia somewhere in the middle, and Kenya as more restrictive.
Q78 Mrs Latham: In your written evidence, Marta and Laura, you expressed concern for the 170,000 Eritrean refugees currently living in Ethiopia. Following the recent peace deal between the two countries, can you explain what exactly your key concerns are?
Professor Kibreab: What the current peace has done is it has opened the Ethiopian-Eritrean border, and because mobility was very restricted in Eritrea prior to July, many Eritreans have seized this opportunity to cross the Ethiopian border. A large number of Eritreans, including those who are not affected by national service, have moved to Ethiopia. Probably that overwhelms the services that are available in Ethiopia, but the Ethiopian Government is receiving them warmly.
However, whether or not it will be able to integrate them into Ethiopian society is a very difficult question. This new job arrangement hopes to at least provide employment opportunities to 10% of 950,000 refugees. What the Ethiopian Government is doing is that they have to report to the camps, but they can also move to Ethiopia, to Addis Ababa or to the cities without reporting in the camps. However, to be able to obtain documents, they have to go back to the camps to register.
The fact that they are allowed to move freely in Ethiopia does not mean entitlement to jobs or to residence permits, and so on. They have to be sponsored by a legally residing person; that could be an Ethiopian or an Eritrean. Once that arrangement is made, they can apply for work permits, but they have to return to the camps to do that.
It is still at a very early stage, but in reality it is beyond their capacity, especially now the country is facing lots of problems due to ethnic issues, and the Government are just stabilising themselves and are facing lots of obstacles in spite of their great intentions. The obstacles are so great that their hands may be tied.
Q79 Chris Law: That actually leads on to my question, which is around the Ethiopian jobs compact, in which there has been £80 million invested by DFID. I wanted to know if you think that it is an effective way of dealing with the root causes of migration. I know it is early stages, but what is your view?
Professor Hammond: Maybe I could make a very tiny point related to the previous question as well, which is that in the emerging peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a really important question will be whether or not Ethiopia continues to welcome Eritrean refugees in the way that it has. Eritrea would very much like to put that on to the table, in terms of insisting, “Now that we are friends, you can send people back”. So far I have spoken to Ethiopian Government officials who say that is not their position and that they are going to continue to receive and welcome Eritrean refugees. However, as Gaim says, the capacity may outsweep their ambitions.
Just to say something about the jobs compact, none of us would disagree with the idea that refugees should be given the right to work wherever they are, and that that helps to ease the burden of providing assistance, when people are able to help themselves. It helps to keep their resilience strong as well. However, refugees, on the most part on the move for political reasons, also have protection issues, protection problems and other kinds of needs that need to be looked at in the round. That is one set of concerns: that it is not just about giving people jobs; it is about thinking about the whole person and what other kinds of protection they need.
The second question is around a lack of clarity around the jobs compact, and exactly what it will look like, on the grounds that 30,000 jobs in a single site would be a disaster, because it would completely upend the ethnic balance questions that are in play. People I have spoken to in the Government have said the current thinking is that we will have some jobs in Tigray, some closer to the South Sudan camp and some closer to the Somalia camps; even if you have 10,000 refugee jobs in Dire Dawa, for instance, where we have recently seen fighting between the Oromo and Somali ethnic groups, that has the potential to destabilise the ethnic composition of what is a cosmopolitan but very fragile city.
I would not say the jobs compact is necessarily a bad idea, but it needs to be done in a very careful way, with a lot of sensitivity to what the wider implications are of creating jobs for these people. There is a gender component to that as well, which is that these new industrial parks that are being created are for the most part so far textile factories, which employ large numbers of women. It is not clear that the refugees who are in search of work are actually the workers that are being sought by the employers. There are really important questions like that to look at.
Q80 Chris Law: What suggestions would you make to DFID to encourage greater integration and economic inclusion for refugees, and obviously to overcome some of the technical issues with regards to being able to apply for work?
Professor Hammond: Gaim pointed to one of those issues, which is that if you are only able to register in the camps, then you are tied to the camps, even if they are not as closed as in the Kenyan sense. Being able to move and having mobility is huge. As we have seen in the Ugandan example, mobility provides a huge source of resilience for people to be able to help themselves. Whether they are given a specific job in a specific scheme, or whether they actually seek their own support as traders, as workers, in finding their own kinds of employment, in a sense those two things should be parallel with each other, at minimum.
Q81 Chair: I am really sorry, but we have two more questions and six more minutes, so I am going to have to move us on to Marta. ODI’s evidence states that information about resettlement should be clearer and more accessible. We know there have been allegations of corruption and fraud in the resettlement processes in both Sudan and Kenya. Do you think that could have been prevented by a different approach?
Marta Foresti: The work we have done in Ethiopia that led to this recommendation about information was not so much related to any evidence of specific cases of corruption, which I know have been raised elsewhere and perhaps that is something that others can comment on or we can come back to you on. The key issue about information and transparency, which in a way leads to some of the points we made earlier, is that, no matter what is put in place as an initiative, whether it is the new jobs compact or the information about existing resettlement opportunities, the evidence suggests that those meant to be on the receiving end of that information tend not to trust it. They either do not have relevant information or the information does not reach them, and assumptions are made about what kind of information people need to make a decision. Whether it is a combination of not trusting that evidence because of an allegation of corruption or misuse, or simply because some of that information does not reach the right people at the right time, it means that opportunities for resettlement are not used.
I would argue there is a similar risk around the job compact: the idea of putting in place pre-packaged initiatives that have not thought through whether they respond to the actual needs is one of the risks. Investing precious DFID money in the wrong way means that it might not lead to the results needed.
Q82 Mrs Latham: I have another question about the global compact. The process for negotiating it for safe and orderly migration has been kept very separate from the global compact for refugees, despite the two issues clearly being linked. Can you tell us why you think this is the case, what impact this has had on the negotiation and how it will affect the implementation? Also, the US, Hungary and Austria have opted out of it; what impact do you think that will have on its implementation and effectiveness as well?
Marta Foresti: The reason the two compacts ended up as two separate processes is that they were originally considered as one; the original idea in the New York declaration was to have a more comprehensive approach, but a number of member states were not keen for that to be the case, the reason being that there were genuine fears that any reopening of conversations, particularly around the 1951 conventions in relation to broader migration—as Laura has said, it is difficult to consider all kinds of migration in one space—was illegitimate, and it is one of the reasons that has led to these separate processes: to ensure that the existing international legal framework around the 1951 convention on refugees was not at risk of being reopened in the broader discussion about what to do about migration. As such, we now have two compacts, one of which—the one on migration—is not a legally binding agreement, for all of those reasons.
This has created a problem. The two compacts have been negotiated in very different and separate ways, with very limited opportunity for cross-fertilisation conversation. In my view, that has, if anything, exacerbated the division and polarisation of the debate between the migration and refugee conversations. The global compact for migration now does include some references to the reality of mixed migration and other migrants in vulnerable situations, so all those migrants that are not likely to qualify for asylum status and are not likely to be covered by the 1951 convention and yet are in situations of distress and abuse that need addressing. That is potentially an entry point. Obviously the fact that it is not legally binding is a limitation, but it also allows for political salience to take the lead, which is what we need. Addressing these realities through international law and legal instruments in the current political context would be extremely difficult. That is an opportunity.
I have a last word on the global compact on migration. As I said, the US and Hungary, and as of last week Austria and as of yesterday Poland and the Czech Republic, I think, have now pulled out of the process. My view is that that makes it all the more important for the UK to engage. The UK and Penny Mordaunt made a very strong statement in the General Assembly in support of the compact. For similar reasons to the ones I mentioned earlier in relation to the Khartoum process, the UK continuing to engage and lead internationally in these matters will help the post-Brexit landscape in this country.
Chair: I am sorry to do this, but can we have a minute each from our other two panellists, and then we are going to have to move on to our second panellist.
Q83 Mrs Latham: I just want to ask if sexual exploitation and abuse has been covered in either of these satisfactorily.
Marta Foresti: There are references in the compact on migration specifically in relation to women and them being at risk of trafficking, in my view sometimes at the expense of all the opportunities that migration also brings for women migrant workers. There is definitely a strong reference, both in relation to children and women. The overall reaction of the international community is that, as far as it could go, the compact does recognise the need and the priorities around these issues. The UK obviously leads internationally on some efforts in relation to trafficking and modern slavery.
Professor Kibreab: The assumptions under which well-meaning Governments and organisations operate are wrong. We do not seem to learn from the past. In 1984 there was a big effort to help host Governments cope with refugees. That was ICARA 2, which was the largest gathering of states that ever took place in migration history. It faded before it took off.
The assumption is that refugees or migrants need to be helped, jobs have to be created for them and so on. The best way to have spent the money would have been to negotiate with Governments to relax their rules, to allow the refugees and migrants to compete for employment, for trade and for everything on equal footing with citizens. If that costs money, then it has to be funded. On the idea that we can create employment for refugees, out of 950,000, how do you select 30,000? How do you create the marketable skills?
On the assumption that refugees are unable to help themselves, every refugee was catering for themselves before they were displaced. If we ignore their status and allow them to realise their potential, they will in no time be self-supporting. The focus should be on that. We have to be creative, we have to learn from the failures of the past, and the European approach, though attractive, is likely to fail, I am sorry to say.
Professor Hammond: The proof of particularly the refugee compact will be in the success with which the comprehensive refugee response frameworks are implemented, and that is one of the main agendas of the trust fund going forward, as well as DFID separately and together. It is really important that that approach has to be built on resilience, starting with the question of what refugees and displaced people are already doing to help themselves? If it can be orientated in that way, the hope is that the compact will have some effect.
Chair: Can I thank all three of you for your fantastic evidence today? Forty-five minutes really was not enough to cover all of the ground as thoroughly as I would have liked, but it is really helpful. Thank you. Feel free to leave, but equally feel free to stay to listen to our second witness. Thank you very much indeed.
Examination of Witness
Witness: Garad Mohamed.
Q84 Chair: Welcome. Thank you very much indeed for joining us today. We have six questions that we are going to seek to cover with you. Let me start. I know that you lived in Dadaab for most of your life so far. Perhaps you could tell us just a bit about what it was like growing up in that refugee camp.
Garad Mohamed: First, thank you very much for inviting me to this Committee. I am Garad, a former refugee who lived in Dadaab for more than two decades. The Dadaab I will be talking about today is far different from the Dadaab I grew up in. I was one of the unluckiest generations who were born prior to the civil war in Somalia, because at the age of two the civil war broke out and we had to flee from Somalia to the neighbouring country of Kenya. On our way to the camp, I turned two and a half at the border between Kenya and Somalia, literally not knowing where I was heading to, but I was lucky to be guided by my father and with my other siblings. We were very lucky to be received by the UN refugee agency at the border between Kenya and Somalia, with a big board on which was written “Welcome”, with little basic needs, food, clothes and a bit of shelter.
I did not know where we were heading, and there were flocks of people escaping the violence, using carts, others just walking and some were even left on the way to the reception centre where the UN refugee agency was receiving refugees. We were received there, registered and then resettled at a place five kilometres away from the border, called Liboi.
We were there for three years. In June 1994, we were transferred to Dadaab, which was literally open for two years, having first arrived at Ifo refugee settlement. We were moved there for reasons related to security. The UN refugee agency had seen the nearness to the border could have more security issues in the settlement and they could not control who was coming in and out of the refugee settlement. In those early days, the good thing with the refugees was they were given everything, including food, and the healthcare was far better than it is at the moment. Everything was absolutely fine, and then we were transferred to Dadaab and I spent two decades there. I went through my primary education, to high school and, after graduating, I was asked to work with the UN refugee agency as a field interpreter, field facilitator, helping the refugees. That is how I had the opportunity to come to the UK, under a programme called Gateway Protection Programme, which is facilitated by the Home Office, and I am here today.
Q85 Chair: You are very welcome and thank you so much. You have covered in your opening remarks some of the questions we are going to ask a bit more about in a moment. You mentioned education. Can you tell us a little more about the sort of education that you received when you were in Dadaab?
Garad Mohamed: As a universal right, we were given the sort of education system that reflected on refugees in conflict and post‑conflict areas, an education system that never carried a particular curriculum. All that could be taught was basic English, maths and a few sciences. In the early days, the education sector, as a sector on its own, was run by an organisation called CARE International in Canada. We had unskilled teachers who, as soon as they left high school, were told to walk to the classrooms and teach. We had no other future; we had to commit and be resilient in whatever we were taught and study hard, to get out of the camps. There were no reading materials issued to students, nor were there enough classrooms to accommodate them. The class I went through my primary education in accommodated 65 to 70 pupils, in very tiny rooms, with no ventilation at all in place, and we had no option but just to remain.
Q86 Chair: How many hours a day were you able to be at school?
Garad Mohamed: It was literally two to three hours.
Chair: Two or three hours in a class of 65 to 70.
Garad Mohamed: Yes, in a class of 65. In that, you would have two to three periods. The headmaster or headmistress would come and say, “We are facing lots of cuts and we are not able to run more classes, so you may have to consider attending shifts”. You might be on an afternoon shift or morning shift. It was split into shifts due to lack of funds. That is the kind of education I received in the camp. The worst of it is the few that were in place are no longer in the camps at the moment.
Q87 Chris Law: Thank you, Garad, for being here. It is a real privilege. Speaking for the panel, we are really humbled to hear your testimony. I know you visited your friends and family in the camp earlier this year. Can you tell us what the conditions were like and how they compared to the conditions that you experienced?
Garad Mohamed: The conditions in the camp have terribly changed from time to time. A year ago, the World Food Programme—WFP—announced that it was forced to cut food, because it was diverting some of the funds to Syrian refugees. As a result, the refugees, who were fed every fortnight, are just given maize flour, oil and beans once a month. That has caused quite a lot of malnutrition in the camp, with quite a lot of hopelessness and making the people in the camp suffer quite a lot. The condition they are undergoing at this stage is absolutely terrible. They have no aspirations and dreams; that is the way they put it.
I returned earlier this year and, having realised the suffering these people are undergoing at this defining moment, it is something I will define as hell on earth, because there is nothing being given to them. Whenever they try to address their problems, no one listens to them; nothing is put into consideration. There is always an answer to their questions, which is that there is quite a lot of donor fatigue and there is nothing in place for them. They have no alternative place to go.
The condition is very much worse and the people there are just telling me they only have one dream they are waiting for, which is a resettlement opportunity. We all know that the resettlement opportunities given to refugees are no longer happening, America being one of the largest sponsors of refugee resettlement programmes, and the UK. The scale has reduced and they have no other option but to remain in the settlement, so the condition is very bad. To reiterate, it is very dire. Every service has been reduced and when I have asked why this is so, they say, “It is a method used by the aid agencies to disperse people from the camps”. It is terrible and there has to be a timely intervention.
Q88 Chris Law: That is quite shocking and awful to hear. What do you think is directing the aid agencies? You have mentioned the World Food Programme. Are other things being cut back as well, such as education and access to the right to work? What other issues are going on, and what needs to change to improve that?
Garad Mohamed: The health sector is another major critical area that needs to be addressed. The health sector has closed all the health posts that were operating to receive outpatients.
The other worrying thing is that the emergency service has stopped running 24 hours. At times, you may find a mother in labour being told that she cannot be received at this stage because there is a huge number of people waiting and she may have to consider being taken back to her house. As a result, the child mortality rate has increased; it is very high, with no other mechanisms in place. The people there have no money to go to private hospitals and, even if they did, they are not allowed to leave the camp due to the movement restrictions imposed on them by the Kenyan Government. There are always announcements of child mortality in the camp and, if you stay overnight, you may hear cries and wails in the neighbourhood, and you may hear that someone has just passed away because of labour complications.
I spent eight days there and it was terrifying to see and experience, as someone who lived in the camp and as someone who has stayed away for some time and then came back, the kinds of problems they are coping with and the way they have no other alternatives or means to save their lives. It is something that is contributing to quite a lot of mental health problems in the camp. You see quite a lot of people with stress, anxiety and depression, just because they have no means to get away from the camp. They have no money to get what they want and they can never leave the camp. The situation is critical and needs urgent intervention.
Q89 Chair: What you are telling us about is very profound and very disturbing. You talked about the World Food Programme and aid agencies, and about the Kenyan Government. Where do you see this coming from? Is it primarily led from the Kenyan Government, or is it more about aid agencies just being incredibly stretched and not having the funding from donors, or is it a mixture of the two?
Garad Mohamed: I would say a mix of the two. I will have to explain. Kenya was a welcoming country in the early 1990s and it will be something I will always be grateful for, because that is where I built my life and future. From time to time, the Kenyan Government have changed their own mind, which they are entirely able to do, to either keep the refugees there or say, “We have had enough. The international community has to do something about them”.
When it comes to aid agencies, aid agencies have always made the excuse that they are facing donor fatigue. When you ask the community leaders and other stakeholders, they will say, “It is a method of dispersing people from the camps. They just want to close Dadaab and that is a means to scale down all the services”. These two issues have depressed the refugees residing in Dadaab. The estimated population is 500,000 refugees. The permanent settlement has no service that you could say that humans can live on and bear with. Every sector—education, health, sanitation, hygiene, food—is terrible. There is nothing in place where you can say, “Well, if they do not have this, they can at least bear with this”.
One of the things that has stressed the elders and the community leaders, when I have asked them, as a former refugee, as their own son, is they told me, “Garad, this can only keep us here. We have nowhere to go. We have nowhere to leave to. We will just die here. There is no other way. The only service we enjoyed for the last 10 years was education, because our children have been getting some sort of education”, which, practically, they were right, because I studied there and had my own early years of education, but it was terrible. All the schools seem to be shut down.
The high school I went to, in particular, was run only for two to three hours. Imagine a high school student who is supposed to sit for a national exam. The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education is one of the toughest national exams in sub‑Saharan Africa countries. They are meant to sit eight to 10 subjects, which are compulsory for them to excel and do well in exams. They were just told to attend two to three hours as high school students. They are all stressed. They have no reading lamps. The schools are not lit at night and they have no reading lamps or light at home either, so it has increased the number of dropouts, creating an opportunity for the terrorist groups and insurgents to easily recruit such vulnerable youth. It is deeply worrying, in terms of security, to look at a high school student who has been told, “You cannot attend anymore”. All those factors intertwine and need an intervention. For the UK, a global humanitarian leader, this issue needs generosity and a hand.
Chair: I know I speak on all our behalves when I say that we will pursue this, as a Committee, with the UK Government, the Kenyan Government and with aid agencies. The evidence you have given us today is very powerful but also very disturbing.
Q90 Mrs Latham: UNHCR has informed us that more than 120,000 Somalian refugees have now been repatriated since 2014. Do you think these returns are truly voluntary, or do you think that the people feel under pressure to go back?
Garad Mohamed: The repatriation programme that was launched two years ago is absolutely ineffective and not working for the refugees. This is one of the things I enquired of people, about what they are seeing. It is a cycle that is just going on. They have put in place the repatriation scheme, which people have been told is voluntary, but in a way it is not voluntary, because all the services have been reduced. There are no effective services in place for the refugees to bear living in the camp. As a result, people have said, “Why do I not just take this money from the organisation, leave the camp and see where I end up?” On their return, people could not trace the cities and houses they left, because they have all been cleared in terms of the frustrations that were carried out by the people who were inhabiting Somalia. There were a lot of risks they have been exposed to and a number of them have returned to the camps.
The critical thing, which is worrying, is that they have not been allowed to re‑register in the camp. Once they have been taken out of the UN database they are not allowed to be received again as new arrivals. This is not working for them, because they are leaving Dadaab, where they have had something—there was water and there was at least a little food given each month—and they are going to an area where there is nothing in place and where security is compromised, where they cannot report any incident that happens.
The repatriation programme is not working in Dadaab at this stage and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has not clearly defined this process with the safety and dignity of the refugees. It has just been put as it is and they have not, critically, found out what needed to be in place before these repatriations were carried out. As I have heard from their mouths, as first‑hand information, the repatriation programme is not working for the refugees at all at this stage. They are just going there and then coming back to the camps, with no registrations carried out.
Q91 Mrs Latham: Obviously, it is very unsatisfactory when they go back. Are they more likely to come back to Dadaab, or are they more likely to be internally displaced in Somalia?
Garad Mohamed: They are considering both options. Some are saying, “This is hell. I have to get out of Dadaab. It is not what I want. I will go out”. Some will say, “I have no other place to call home; Dadaab is the only place”, and, literally, Dadaab was the place we called home. We built our lives with safety and dignity in the early days, but it is not working anymore. If they come back, they will not be allowed to register, because all their data has been taken out of the UNHCR and they will not be allowed to remain in the camp. If they were found remaining in the camp, they will be criminals, because they are nationals of no nation. They are not refugees, they are not Kenyans, so they will be criminals carrying out criminal activity in the camp. At that stage, it is critical for them to come back and to carry on their journey through life.
Q92 Chair: We heard from a previous witness about some of the alternatives to camps, and the example given of the Kalobeyei settlement, just outside the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. What is your view about these sorts of approaches—alternatives to camps?
Garad Mohamed: Any refugee, anywhere in the world, has a right to be given three options: resettlement—taken to a third country—integrated to the host country, or repatriation. Repatriation is not working at this stage. Resettlement has always been entirely up to the sponsoring countries; no one can push them and say, “Give resettlement to refugees”. The only effective thing that will work for the people of Dadaab and any other part of Kenya and any sub‑Sahara Africa country is an integration scheme. The integration scheme is effective.
The case of Uganda is one of the most important steps, where the Ugandan Government have responded to the growing global crisis of refugees and asylum seekers. They have been given land and identity and been told to live like any other Ugandan. If the Kalobeyei project is carried out similarly on Dadaab and other displaced settlements in the region, it will be very effective. The part of Kenya the people of Dadaab live in at the moment is a distant part of Kenya where the inhabitants of that land are effectively Somalis and that will easily help them to integrate. If they are given Kenyan identity cards, they will absolutely find it very comfortable and pursue their aspirations and dreams in life.
The education and the curriculum in Kenya is just the same. Inside and outside the camps, there is just one Kenyan curriculum. It will be quite easy for them to learn in Swahili, which is the native language of Kenya, and English is the universal language they learn all about. It is very effective and it is something that has to be strengthened. The Kalobeyei project is very important and very effective, and it will work for the people of Dadaab and in the region as a whole.
Q93 Chair: Did you learn English in the camp or have you learned English since you have been here?
Garad Mohamed: I learned English in the camp. I used to memorise the alphabet all day.
Q94 Chair: Did members of your family speak English before?
Garad Mohamed: No, nobody. My father used to tell me, whenever I was reading something, “What do you mean by this? What do you mean by this?” and I used to tell him and it was just fun. I learned in the camp and while coming here, I pursued my academic journey and I am a third‑year student at Leeds Beckett University, pursuing international relations and global development and peace.
Chair: That is fantastic.
Q95 Mrs Latham: You described refugees as being voiceless. What more can donors and international agencies do to ensure those voices are heard and that they better incorporate refugees’ needs into their policies?
Garad Mohamed: One thing the UN and the aid agencies operating in Dadaab need to work on at this stage is to invite refugees to decision‑making tables. They have always been excluded from the decision‑making tables. They will just be told, “Gather everybody”, and there is an announcement made. What will work for refugees, the UN and the aid agencies operating in Dadaab, helping refugees, is to include them at decision‑making tables. Give them a say and work on their wants, not just say, “We find that Dadaab is a camp that is not going anywhere; we will have to scale down the services to disperse them”.
Certain decisions have been selfishly made by the aid agencies and it has never worked for them. They thought these people would just leave when they scaled down the services, but they say, “We are not going anywhere. This is our home. Dadaab is where we have found safety and dignity at some stage of our life”. The only thing that is a durable solution is literally including them in decision-making. Proposals and decisions have to be carried out unanimously and that will work effectively for both refugees and the aid agencies and will at least give them a chance to find durable solutions to the problems.
Q96 Mrs Latham: In your opinion, what more could the UK do in East Africa to prevent forced displacement and support those people who are forced to flee?
Garad Mohamed: For me, as a person, I would like the UK Government, as a global leader of humanitarian response, to make sure that the areas these people are fleeing have law and order restored—I mean the institutions and the Governments—so that the nationals who are ending up in these camps can leave. This can be a way that the United Kingdom can at least restore law and order and find a way to rebuild those institutions that have collapsed. Look at a case like Somalia. In Somalia, there is a federal republic Government in place at the moment. They are trying to find a way forward different from what previous Governments have done to rebuild the institutions. If that is strengthened, if this area’s refugees are repatriated and fully engaged in terms of security, stability and the services that these people want put in place, these people will voluntarily go back. In the case of people going back to Lower Juba, for example, they have said, ‘Well, we came from Lower Juba, southern Somalia and we find there is things in place and we just want to go back”, and, when they went back, they found it is the Somalia they left in the 1990s. If security problems are fixed, and infrastructure and social services are put in place, they will be very happy to leave. The only solution to this is to at least help those administrations and Governments that these nationals have left, to work with them and strengthen the support they want, and these people will find it easy to go back and live there.
Q97 Chris Law: I wanted to ask you a really pertinent question about the culture of debate around migration here in the UK. We took evidence earlier about how it is toxic. Do you see that as a fair portrayal in the UK media and also by the Government? What needs to change around that debate?
Garad Mohamed: That is a good question. I was waiting for that type of question; it has come to my mind quite a lot of times. The case of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers has to be understood: that these are fellow humans who come to the UK to build a life with safety and dignity.
A good example would be me. We have to take stories from positive sides all the time. I came here on a resettlement programme, thinking that ending up in the United Kingdom would be another chance to rebuild my life, which I absolutely am grateful to the UK Government and Home Office for. Refugees and asylum seekers are humans, as I said, like any other. The refugee issue, as a whole, is something that we can experience any day in our lives. It is not only about coming to cause problems here or steal jobs or cause other issues that may upset people. It is about coming here, contributing to the economy, contributing to the culture and diversity and contributing to the greatness of Great Britain. It is those kinds of things that will have to be thought about with the issue of refugees.
Refugees have to be encouraged to contribute to the economy, to the stability and to the prosperity and development of this country. The UK media seem to not be exposing the positive stories, like my story and others. I want the UK to be a country that is developed far ahead of everything, and a global humanitarian leader that inspires aspirations and dreams of lives, not shattering dreams. The UK media need to review their broadcasts and bring up stories that are positive and that will inspire those who may feel social isolation. That kind of activity inspires negatively those who think that they have no other means to survive, but if positive stories are aired it will inspire those who feel social isolation to say, “I am a refugee. Garad is a refugee. If someone as a refugee has achieved that, then why not me?” so it will positively utilise their energy, their talents, their strength and their commitment. I would suggest that they need to air programmes that are positive and inspiring, with dignity, and that consider them as fellow humans. We never know who will be a refugee any day in our lives and we have seen, from time to time, there are influxes of refugees and a lot of displacement all over the world. We never know what could be the next thing. I say again that they need to bring out positive stories that inspire people.
Q98 Chris Law: Just following on from that, many will not know that one in three refugees in the world live in sub‑Saharan Africa. Do you think the UK media fail to cover that? Also, in terms of some of the stories that refugees face—not least CNN International last year, which faced the story about the detention camps in Libya, where refugees there were being sold off as slaves, which came as a shock and horror to many people here in the UK—do these stories, not only about the challenges faced in the camps but the scale, need to be much more on our television screens and in our newspapers?
Garad Mohamed: With the issue of dangerous crossing and forced displacement, particularly in Libya, it is one of the most frightening displacements the world has ever experienced. The issue of slavery is one critical issue that no one has ever experienced. People seeking safety being used and enslaved is deeply worrying.
The only way that the UK Government and the media have to respond to this is to find a way to restore some form of life, dignity and living in the countries these people are fleeing. Particularly the sub‑Saharan countries have had quite a lot of conflicts and violence and wars. If those are resolved, at least at some point it will reduce the level of people fleeing from those areas.
The issue of Libya is critical, because it is a country in civil war and there is no one to report all those atrocities and crimes happening. As a result, refugees have no other alternative route to escape the violence and wars. As a result, they are being caught up in those problems. They have experienced it, some of them, at some time. In that case, the UK media and the UK Government have to at least find a way they can help those people out and see the problems resolved in the areas they are fleeing.
The dangers of dangerous crossing, as life‑threatening, as something that will never be positive, should be aired. Even if they end up here, it is not guaranteed they will be accepted. It is not something that is automatic: that you just land here and you get your documents. Some of them have been through those journeys and, when they have reached here, they have been refused and ended up destitute, resulting in the development of mental health problems. It is not even guaranteed, ending up here, that you will get those papers you want and live the life you want. You cannot say, “I am done. I have arrived in the United Kingdom”.
The only way, as I said before, is to work with those administrations and Governments and countries at war, resolve their problems, restore some law and order. In that, these people will find it quite comfortable to leave and the rate of migrants will scale down.
Q99 Chris Law: This is the last question from me and the panel. What do you think the UK Government could be doing more of to change the tone of the debate around refugees and migration in the UK?
Garad Mohamed: The tone we expect the UK Government to air and say on the rhetoric on refugees, migrants and asylum seekers has to be one of dignity and humility for fellow humans. We have to be positive about others, and the only way we can make this world a better place is to make sure that it is safe for everyone. To the UK Government, as a great country and a champion and global leader of humanitarian response, we ask that these people ending up on your shores, at your gates and your doors, be received with humility and dignity. Help them develop the skills they want to contribute to the economy, to the safety and the labour market of the country. It is something that will work for both refugees and the UK Government, hand in hand, if they are given a dignified reception and make refugees better people, who contribute to the country’s economic stability and progress.
Chair: On behalf of all of us, can I say a big thank you to you for your evidence and coming before us today? You have raised a lot of different issues, but I am going to take away, in particular, what you said about current conditions in Dadaab. We will pursue that, as I said earlier, with the UK Government, but also the Government in Kenya and aid agencies. Also, I take the points you have raised about repatriation and around the domestic debate here and how we can change that tone; it is very strong evidence. On behalf of the whole Committee, I wish you the very best of luck for your own future. If I may say, you are a fantastic ambassador for refugees in this country. You have given us extraordinarily clear, compelling and powerful evidence today, so thank you very much indeed.
Garad Mohamed: Thank you so much, again, for having me.