The UN Migration Agency and EU Partners have announced the intention to provide returning Nigerian migrants with "reintegration assistance" in the form of local business projects in Nigeria that create sustainable work opportunities and discourage irregular migration.
As of late July onwards, nearly 4,000 Nigerian migrants stranded in European or African countries will receive reintegration assistance from the UN Migration Agency IOM if they wish to return home. The aim is to discourage irregular migration through sustainable work and dialogue at home, the IOM said in a statement. The measure will involve the migrants' local communities through collective reintegration projects, such as business partnerships between returning migrants and members of their community.
Support by the EU
The European Union Trust Fund (EUTF) support is part of the EU-IOM Initiative for the Protection and Reintegration of Migrants, which was launched in Nigeria on July 20. Roughly 3,800 Nigerian migrants will receive in-kind reintegration assistance to start businesses, study, or cover medical and accommodation costs after they return home from other African countries (an estimated 3,000 migrants) and from EU member states (800 migrants) over the next three years. This represents a major scale-up in the reintegration assistance that IOM provided previously; the organization supported around 300 returning migrants in the past year.
Nigeria, the most common land of origin for migrants
The timing of the initiative is critical as Nigeria continues to be the most common nationality of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Italy. Some 37,551 Nigerians arrived on Italian shores last year and this year, 9,286 have arrived as of May 2017. Tragically, many others never arrive; since January 2,207 migrants have died or remain missing at sea along the Central Mediterranean route, IOM reports.
IOM has helped more than 1,770 stranded Nigerians to return safely from Libya this year. Many were victims of exploitation, detention, and abuse during their travel to Libya, where the journey to Europe often ends. Nearly all of them are not forcibly displaced, but rather set out in search of better job opportunities. The most vulnerable among them, such as children, women with young children, trafficking-victims, those with disabilities or in need of medical attention, received in-kind reintegration assistance.
The story of a mother who wants back to tailoring
"Her name is Flourish. That's what we hope to do now that we're home," said a Nigerian mother depicted by an IOM photo beside her baby lying on a bed. "I want to start tailoring again", she adds now sure that the EUTF project will help her do that. IOM helped the mother and little Flourish return safely from Libya in May, after months of detention.