Tag Archives: African

Nationality + Migration

Costa Rica News | African Migrants

Costa Rica looks to deport hundreds of African migrants
  • An estimated 600 African migrants have become stranded in the country in an attempt to reach the U.S., and the Costa Rican government is attempting to deport them despite the high costs of repatriation or resettlement in a third country.
  • The country is dealing with an ongoing crisis involving thousands of stranded Cubans, who because of border closures have found themselves unable to continue on their trek to the U.S.
  • The government has reportedly received around 200 applications for asylum since late March and denied all of them.

Read more:
“600 US-bound Africans stranded in Costa Rica after officials block route” (The Guardian)
“Deporting 600 migrants back to Africa could be expensive, and impossible” (The Tico Times)
“Deportation Will Be The Final Solution For African Migrants Who Re-enter Costa Rica IllegallyDeportation Will Be The Final Solution For African Migrants Who Re-enter Costa Rica Illegally” (QCostaRica)

(Image Credit: Public Security Ministry, via The Tico Times)

Health + Ability, Nationality + Migration

Interregional Feature | Refugees with Mental Illness

The Spiraling Mental Health of Syrian Refugees

“Is it because these refugees are coming from somewhere where they’ve seen their families butchered and suffered some kind of trauma? […] Or is it because as refugees they had to wander across half of Africa for a couple years before they ever got to Europe? Or is it because that when they got to Europe and eventually Sweden, they lived in fear of being kicked out of the country?”

As refugees find themselves piling up at closed borders, stuck indefinitely in overcrowded camps, and resettled in countries they may have had little to no connection to, reports are indicating an increasing prevalence of mental health problems and risk of long-term illness. The stresses of war, upended lives, separated families, life-threatening travel, and an uncertain future have caught up to a growing number of refugees, causing severe degradation of their mental health relative to other non-refugee migrant groups.

Humanitarian workers have observed that deteriorating mental health conditions with little access to appropriate healthcare have contributed to violence and vulnerability to radicalization. While refugees tell stories of loss, desperation, and disillusionment, field psychologists report increases in or risk of PTSD, panic disorders, depression, anxiety, and a range of psychotic conditions among refugee populations, further compounding their already marginalized status and setting the stage for potentially lifelong psychological battles.

Read more:
“Refugees Suffer a Higher Rate of Psychotic Disorders” (Scientific American)
“Lebanon struggles to help Syrian refugees with mental health problems” (Reuters)
“Idomeni’s refugees suffer mental anguish” (Deutsche Welle)
“Psychological toll on Syrian refugees alarming, many suffer from mental illnesses” (The Daily Sabah)
“Syrian Refugees In Canada Face Ongoing Health Challenges: Study” (The Huffington Post)

(Image Credit: D. Tosidis/Deutsche Welle)

Gender, Nationality + Migration

UAE Feature | Migrant Women

Trapped in Silence

Women in the UAE–particularly the country’s large population of Asian and African migrant women–have long faced a brutal catch-22 under the Gulf nation’s Sharia-driven legal system after being raped. When attempts at legal justice can lead to their own prosecution for extramarital sex, women find themselves coerced into silence and, for migrant workers, at the mercy of employers who control their movement in the country and ability to leave. BBC and the Guardian highlight the stories of rape victims and the structural disadvantages they face, from illegal abortions to imprisonment with illegitimate children.

Read more:
“Raped, pregnant and afraid of being jailed” (BBC)
“UAE imprisoning rape victims under extramarital sex laws – investigation” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: BBC)

Class + Socioeconomics, Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

France Feature | Working Class, Immigrants & Racial Minorities

Estates of Emergency

France’s notorious housing estates–akin to housing projects in the U.S.–have long existed as symbols of an unintegrated France. Though President François Hollande has pledged to address the long-standing segregation that divides Paris’s poor banlieues from its more affluent city center, rampant unemployment, limited educational opportunities, crime, and stigmatization continue largely unchecked. The Guardian reflects on conditions in Paris’s most notorious estates a decade after riots forced what one banlieue mayor has called “social and territorial apartheid” into the national consciousness.

Read more:
“‘Nothing’s changed’: 10 years after French riots, banlieues remain in crisis” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: Ed Alcock/The Guardian)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Israel News | Migrants & Refugees

Protests erupt in Tel Aviv following Supreme Court decision limiting migrant detentions to 12 months
  • After the court ruling that calls for the immediate release of around 1,200 migrants detained without charge, some Tel Aviv residents took to the streets in outrage.
  • Demonstrators claimed asylum seekers bring down their quality of life with crime and open-air living.
  • Protesters confronted some migrants around Lewinsky Park, yelling insults and condemning the Supreme Court.

“What’s going to happen in reality is that thousands of infiltrators are going to come here and make our lives hell, even more than they are now. … We are going to fight this with all our strength.”

Read the full story at Ynet News.

Gender, Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

U.A.E. News | Black Women

Black hotel visitors receive apology from five-star hotel in Dubai after being asked to leave
  • A Nigerian event manager and her friend had been out for the evening at the lounge in the Mövenpick Hotel Jumeirah Beach, where a waitress reportedly refused to serve them and a security guard told them to leave.
  • The hotel issued an apology for the “misunderstanding” and claimed that such measures were not standard practice at the beachfront hotel.
  • Black women in Dubai face targeting under suspicion of prostitution–particularly at hotels–leading to racial profiling.

“A female staff came out and tried to hush up the matter saying ‘Obama is the President of US’ as if that had anything to do with us. I want the management of the hotel to realise that this isn’t 1930. This is 2015. You cannot walk up to random black women and tell them you will not serve them because they are black.”

Read the full story at Gulf News.

(Image Credit: Wanderforth.com)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Italy News | Refugees & Interfaith

In Milan, Holocaust memorial doubles as accommodations for African refugees
  • With the help of Jewish, Catholic, and Muslim community partners and volunteers, the Holocaust Memorial has dedicated part of its space to sheltering the refugees, providing food, beds, and washing facilities.
  • The Memorial stands at the site of Platform 21, the only remaining intact deportation site from the Holocaust that had part of its plan converted into a museum in 2013.
  • The Italian Jewish community–including famed Holocaust survivor Liliana Serge–has drawn parallels between the situations and indifference faced by Holocaust-era Jews and African migrants fleeing violence, persecution, and hardship.

“When I was expelled from school, very few people noticed that my seat had suddenly been emptied; very few people didn’t turn their faces when they ran into me on the streets. Today I witness with astonishment what is happening to these migrants who are seeking help from our opulent Europe, where people waste food and are obsessed with buying new things even if their houses are already full.”

Read the full story at the Times of Israel.

(Image Credit: Rossella Tercatin/The Times of Israel)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity
African immigrants in China face strict immigration restrictions and an ambivalent public
  • One report puts the number of Africans with residence permits in Guangzhou at 30,000, with an additional undocumented 300,000.
  • The detention of some in the community for overstaying or failing to obtain their visas contributes to a public perception of criminality in the black Chinese population.
  • As China has begun aggressive efforts at building Sino-African relations and investment in the African continent, overt online racism and xenophobia create setbacks in friendly bilateral exchange, though the attitudes are not universal.

“People tend to be much braver online where there’s no fear of identification or retribution. Most people that spout racism online are generally people who’ve had no contact with black people or have been slighted by one and then hate all of them.”

More on this story at Global Voices.

(Image Credit: Apple Daily, via Global Voices)

Race + Color + Ethnicity
English primary schools see enrollment levels not experienced since the 1970s as the ethnic minority child population continues to increase
  • Primary-school enrollment has grown by nearly 100,000 (2.1%) in the last year, with an increase by 10 since 2014 to 87 schools that now have at least 800 pupils.
  • Minority children make up 71% of the increase, bringing the total enrollment proportion to 30.4% of students.
  • With enrollment projected to grow by 460,000 over the next five years, the government has announced increased funding to protect per-capita spending and exert downward pressure on class size.

More on this story at BBC.

(Image Credit: BBC)