EDITORIAL: The capsizing of a boat carrying dozens of illegal immigrants near the Greek island of Gavdos, leading to the tragic loss of five lives on December 14, once again highlights how a combination of extreme poverty, conflict, persecution, poor governance and exploitation by human traffickers can lure and force individuals to undertake highly dangerous journeys in the hope of building a better future for themselves.
Four Pakistanis were confirmed dead in the tragedy, while 47 others were thankfully rescued of which 43 belonged to the districts of Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin. Reports suggest that most of the passengers on board the boat were, in fact, Pakistani nationals.
The popularity of this route is quite evident, as over a 100 survivors were rescued the same day from two other boats also attempting to reach Gavdos, with all reportedly setting out from Libya.
While it is understandable why people from war-torn and conflict-ridden countries, like Syria and Libya, fleeing persecution and often times the threat of certain death embark on these perilous journeys, the fact that thousands of Pakistanis also choose to similarly risk their lives every year underscores the profound economic hardship, unemployment, and lack of opportunities and hopelessness that define the daily reality for millions of citizens.
This shameful state of affairs reflects a failure of governance, economic planning and social support systems that continue to push desperate, disillusioned citizens towards such dangerous and unreliable paths in search of a better life.
Uncertain economic times, political instability and general despondency over the direction of the country in recent years have led even relatively well-off Pakistanis to seek greener pastures abroad, with emigration through legal routes steadily rising. It is little wonder, then, that the most impoverished among us — who see little prospects for upward economic or social mobility and almost no chance of emigrating legally — would feel compelled to take desperate measures to secure their futures.
In 2023, over 6,000 Pakistanis undertook illegal journeys to reach European shores, driven primarily by economic deprivation, according to the National Commission for Human Rights.
Our ruling elite, however, seem entirely ill-equipped to handle this challenge, plagued as it is by corruption, incompetence and petty power struggles, largely ignoring the implementation of economic reforms whose benefit could reach the majority of the population. The focus, sadly, is too often on measures and policies that serve the narrow interests of the powerful few, reinforcing the cycle of inequality, poverty and social unrest.
To compound matters is the criminal laxity of the law enforcement apparatus, which has allowed the pernicious activities of human traffickers to flourish. A 2022 survey by the Mixed Migration Centre, a migrant research group, revealed that around 90 percent of Pakistanis who arrived in Italy in recent years used a human smuggler, highlighting how pervasive traffickers’ role has been in facilitating illegal migration.
Smugglers target poor towns and villages, making false promises regarding easy success in Europe, and encouraging individuals to pay thousands of dollars for illegal crossings. As a result, families of trafficked individuals end up accruing massive debts to pay these smugglers.
The governmental response has primarily revolved around the arrest of a handful of smugglers by the FIA from time to time, but the few prosecutions that have followed have only targeted small-time middlemen, while allegedly complicit powerful officials and trafficking kingpins remain unpunished.
A little more than a year on from the Messenia migrant boat disaster that also occurred off the coast of Greece, and in which hundreds of Pakistanis perished, human smuggling remains a thriving business.
Merely passing laws against this menace has clearly been insufficient, as enforcement has been woeful and the root causes – economic despair, incompetent law enforcement apparatus, corruption within government circles – remain unaddressed, and the most vulnerable Pakistanis continue to suffer at the hands of a system that has completely failed them.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024