The streets of many French cities have seen a new population of young sub-Saharans multiply. These young people speak French, more or less well, because they come mainly from former French colonies. Most of them arrived illegally through a long and dangerous journey of which we are especially familiar with the torments of crossing the Mediterranean. They are neither refugees (people who need to be protected from a direct threat) nor really economic migrants (usually adults who often move with their families). They have generally been sent and constitute a specific humanitarian cause because of their young age, their family isolation and the difficulties in organizing an appropriate reception for them.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been a region of forced emigration for a very long time. Joseph Kessel succeeds in questioning all those involved in the sale of slaves from sub-Saharan Africa to the Gulf countries. It shows that many of these slaves were sold by their families, often to black traffickers, who in turn sold them to Arab traffickers. The routes are very perilous, especially because the Western powers have banned them. He also notes a passivity, if not a complicity, of the officials and governments crossed by these caravans.

Today, the young illegal migrants who cross North Africa and the sea seem to have taken over. Many young people are sent by their families, often against their will. These families start by paying local smugglers, who hand over to North African smugglers. The financing of this trafficking generates almost as much money for smugglers as in the time of slavery, with a very high risk of mortality along the way. It seems that smugglers somehow manage to keep control of migrants to ensure a return on investment.

The question is, then, why are there so many extra hands in its underdeveloped regions? One imagines that the same investments with the work provided by these exported hands could contribute to a significant improvement in several of these regions. Sylvie FAIZANG and Odile JOURNET said the same thing when they observed women who had succeeded in emancipating themselves from their polygamous husbands (Guinea Bissau). The latter managed to enrich themselves by developing a trade activity from products from their region of origin.

Even if the flow of young sub-Saharan migrants to Europe has always existed. It has risen sharply in recent years. More and more young people are taking insane risks to come and work in Europe. Knowledge of the work of an association helping these young migrants made it possible to reconstruct the history of many of them. The vast majority of these young migrants are from polygamous families. It is the death of a parent that is usually the trigger for the decision to migrate them. Doris Bonnet and Daniel Delanoë, ethnopsychiatrists, talk about family disaffiliation.[1]

As a socio-economist, we will try to make a quick cost-benefit analysis of these illegal population transfers. Today, in the case of migration to France, young migrants come in the hope of being taken care of by the Child Welfare Service, this is what appears in many of the speeches of young Ivorians still in Africa (“In France, if you say that you are a minor, you are taken care of”). Most of them come from polygamous families. In a polygamous family, the woman is more of a saleable “object” than a possessor. If the father dies, the woman is inherited by one of the father’s family members. Children are a cost attached to this item. They know their father very little. The loss of their mother turns them into a burden on the extended family, and most importantly, it makes them lose their only support in the extended family. Hence the idea of getting rid of it.

If the departure is legal, it requires a visa, initial training on site, with possibly a supplement in Europe. After that, the young adult usually works for a while in Europe and returns to Africa or not. Trajectories of this type seem to be beneficial for the young people in question, as well as for their families. It should be noted that in this case, a certain number of young people end up cutting off their families completely, refusing to systematically send them money. The balance for Europe is probably positive because of the contribution of a workforce over a few years, a contribution more or less offset by the cost of travel and studies, which is generally borne by the host country. If the young person returns home and develops a productive activity, then we can say that the result was positive. There are ifs in this estimate…

We will see that in the case of illegal migration, the contribution seems to be much more beneficial for the host country than for the country of departure. Indeed, in order to succeed in crossing the Sahara, then the Mediterranean, and to cross borders, it seems essential to pay smugglers. Today, according to many sources, the cost of the passage is estimated at between 5000 and 7000 euros. In countries where the average salary varies between 100 and 150 euros per month, such a sum cannot come from savings built up from wage labor: basically, it is necessary to sell capital, often productive, such as fields or a car, to reach such a sum. In other words, the country of departure commits productive labor capacity and capital to build up future rents. In terms of enrichment, this may seem logical: at the global level, capital now generates more money than labor. But in terms of the development of the country of origin, it is obvious that it would have been better to commit this capital and this work locally. For the young person, the cost is appalling.

Having been able to observe both ends of this global value chain, we have been able to observe young boys in Africa who are idle, cheerful and complain of a lack of satisfactory work opportunities. Then these young people cross the desert. The rule is that smugglers leave their passengers in the desert several kilometers from the borders by giving them an appointment on the other side of the border. So, the smugglers are never caught. On the other hand, young people can be caught and tortured at the border. They can also get lost or die in the desert. When they arrive at the Mediterranean, they are forced into overladen boats, which have little chance of reaching their destination on their own. It is estimated that a quarter of them die in the crossings of deserts or seas. Before that, almost all of them will have been subjected to sexual abuse and torture that can be assumed to have been ordered by the smugglers themselves, so that these young people will know how harsh they can be if they do not repay their journey as soon as they can. As we can see, the first winners, in monetary terms, are the smugglers. The young people who left cheerful and in solidarity, arrive broken and lonely. They were demolished. However, they are therefore docile students and then workers in the host countries.

“Universitaires Sans Frontières/Academics Without Borders” has a different vision of development. For us, this is an action that must take place on the spot, on the initiative of local actors. USF’s action aims to provide, at their request, resources that they lack according to our ethics and our capacities. If our interlocutors pay us, they control this development, even though a large part of our activity consists of helping them obtain international financing. If we have more requests than response capacities, it means that, despite the cost in time and money, for the reception unit, the benefits are obvious and rapid. We help academic institutions move up in the global rankings and make them more financially and intellectually autonomous.

By trying to increase the links of these universities with the local economic fabric, we want to contribute to a reduction in the brain drain and labor force, which constitute one of the main obstacles to development, even though we are well aware that there are many other obstacles to development in these countries. In my own career as a researcher, the work to which I have been able to contribute has shown that economic take-offs are always linked to a skilled and unskilled workforce willing to work. It is obvious that dreams of a better elsewhere do not favor this disposition, especially since this elsewhere turns out to be more like a hell than a paradise.

So yes, if we are in favor of cultural exchanges and initiatory and formative journeys of links between peoples, we do not want this type of migration of young people to continue. It constitutes a de facto neo-colonialism that pleases the good souls but widens the inequalities between poor and rich countries.

Notes:

The main source of this article comes from volunteer activists within the Lyon-based association named “Association Mineurs Isolés Etrangers”, which between 2016 and 2023 welcomed more than 3500 young illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, 95% of whom were boys. The purpose of this reception was to help them in the process of benefiting from child welfare and also to obtain their enrolment in schools. To do this, many of these young people were asked to tell the story of their lives and the circumstances of their departure, as well as the misfortunes of moving from their place of birth to Lyon.

The central reasoning of my analysis is based on the putting of populations to work in the polygamous regime (polygyny). For the Canadian central government, polygyny is contrary to international law in that it creates an imbalance between women’s rights vis-à-vis men and is therefore to be prohibited in all situations. A long report details the deleterious effects of polygyny, the extent of which varies according to the region but seems to be particularly negative in Central and West Africa (sub-Saharan Africa). The report confirms our findings that fathers are more indifferent to their children, and vice versa. Children have lower self-esteem.

For Gilbert Etienne, it is indeed sub-Saharan Africa that is the main focus of underdevelopment through the ages. He introduces a parallel between what is happening in Africa and Asia, and with the colonizers, whether they are European or Japanese. The fact that decolonization went almost smoothly (with the notable exception of Guinea) did not prevent this region from getting off to a bad start in the words of René DUMONT, for Etienne it could only get off to a bad start: “Colonization had lasted less than a century in most cases, a short time if we only take into account the development efforts that increased from 1945 onwards” (op cit p 32).

The book breaks down all the theories that give recipes to get a country out of underdevelopment. He notes, however, that the construction of infrastructure, particularly roads, is a considerable aid to development, much more than direct aid. He also notes that neither corruption nor the level of democracy are the explanation for the blockages. He is even skeptical about literacy levels. All this from a remarkable compilation of statistics or concrete cases. He notes that foreign direct investment certainly plays a role in successful developments, provided that the beneficiary states ensure that this capital cannot leave the country overnight.

Chile and China have taken such assurances and have avoided the agonies that Argentina has experienced. He believes that as soon as development begins, it is the responsibility to ensure that the birth rate is controlled so that the wealth created allows for poverty reduction. He reproaches Western countries for giving inappropriate moral lessons. Aid policies are often contradicted by protectionism towards exports of minimally processed products, particularly agricultural products, which could be the basis of development. Pierre GOUROU, as Gilbert ETIENNE reminds us (op cit p 18) compares regions that are geographically quite similar: the plateaus of Tamil-Nadu and those of Central East Africa. With fairly similar hygrometric regimes, the former provide a living for 200 people per km2, while Africa only provides a living for 3 or 4. The Guru gives such a polyfactorial explanation for this that he does not give any leverage that could benefit these African ar

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[1] Doris BONNET, Daniel DELANOE (2019), Motifs de départs des jeunes migrants d’Afrique subsaharienne,  Journal des Africanistes N°89-2