EDITORIAL: That 2023 was the “deadliest year in a decade” for migrants, most of them fleeing their homes in Africa and Asia, is an ominous reflection on living conditions for average people in third world countries.

According to the UN’s figures, at least 8,565 people perished on migration routes worldwide in 2023, a shocking 20 percent jump over 2022. The previous record was set in 2016, with 8,084 deaths. And already in 2024, 512 deaths have been recorded, so the trend does not seem to be slowing.

It’s not surprising that most of these deaths came from drowning because headlines often speak of small, crowded boats overflowing with desperate migrants hunting greener pastures in Europe tipping over and killing their load.

Pakistanis are well aware of this problem since it combines one of the world’s biggest populations and highest poverty rates and a very large number of families struggle to survive amid record high inflation and unemployment.

Now, increasingly every year, dreams of a better future turn into nightmares for families counting on their breadwinners to carve out better lives abroad, often in Turkey or mainland Europe, before gathering more funds for another journey across the Atlantic.

It’s also understandable that while the UN does the important service of collecting such data, it’s not able to recommend a solution. This is one big criminal racket at the end of the day, and often all authorities of affected countries do is crack down on human smugglers that prey on desperate individuals in faraway lands.

But that does not seem to accomplish much because the real problem lies elsewhere. It is the point to which the standard of life of the average individual has dropped in most low income countries that stokes this fire.

After all, common people are able to brave corrupt leaders and unfair social systems only so long. And once they reach the stage when they are unable to provide for their families, social evils like suicides and illegal migration are a very natural outcome.

Sadly, things are not likely to get much better anytime soon at home. The upcoming IMF (International Monetary Fund) programme that the government is so excited about will levy savage indirect taxes that land much more heavily on the poor.

And since the Fund’s structural response forces extremely contractionary fiscal and monetary policies, ordinary people can only look forward to less earnings, higher cost-push inflation and much higher unemployment as the price for the country not to tumble into default.

And it’s clear that such an environment will force even more people to take to illegal migration, no matter how many deaths the UN reports every year. Let there be no mistake, unless and until average life in the third world improves, human smugglers will keep taking advantage of desperate families and the UN will keep counting the dead. Alas, there’s very little to suggest such improvement in the foreseeable future, and that is bad news for illegal migrants whose dreams seem destined to go sour for a while yet.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024