As emerges from a report prepared jointly in 2016 by Europol and Interpol, “The industry of the exploitation of migratory flows” produces a turnover of beyond 6 billion euros the year and uses on a stable basis beyond 40 000 employees who earn an average annual salary of 150 000 euros. Over the years, the phenomenon of migration directed towards the European continent gave rise to real route Each characterized by its specificity, between them, that on several occasions has imposed itself on the attention of the news is undoubtedly the so -called “African route” which crosses the desert of Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea and which allowed the ruthless signs of international traffickers to accumulate authentic fortunes.
The origins of migrants
Modern illegal migratory routes date back to the end of the Cold War and at the dawn of the so -called “Globalization”when the new mobility of capital, ideas and work also involved the poorest areas in the world. In the European case, net of intra continental migrations, the territories from which most of the “Hicy” immigrants are the Subsaharian statesthose of Middle East and the countries of Indian subcontinent. Regarding the African migratory phenomenon, it is important to remember that most African migrants have other countries on the continent as their destination, usually close to their homelands. Those who decide to take the way to Europe must first cross the immense desert of Sahara (“The sand ocean”) and then the Mediterranean Sea facing a journey that, in the best case, lasts several months but that sometimes can be transformed into a hellish group lasting years. Furthermore, during these vicissitudes, migrants often become victims of the underworld organizations specialized in the section of human beings.
The lords of the crime and their business
The criminal organizations that manage the traffic of illegal migrants are real International gangsactive throughout Africa and in the Mediterranean Sea. Operate in collaboration with corrupt members of the bureaucracies and security forces of the countries involved in the flows, as evidenced by the case of Libya. In the management of these flows, the criminals have drawn up real over time tariff that include all “Voices of Services“To which the migrants themselves have to resort if they want to arrive alive in Europe. In the years immediately prior to the outbreak of the epidemic of COVID-19it was estimated that the average cost that each migrant had to take on was of about 6 000 euros. Illuminating in order to reconstruct the distribution of costs was the discovery of a sheet of block notes with the numerous “tariff items” reported: the service for crossing the Sahara; the supply of false documents; The provisions for the crossing of the Mediterranean Sea (just 2 bottles of water and a sardine box); a place on board the selected boat for the crossing, taking into account that an accommodation on the blanket It is preferable because in case of shipwreck the chances of saving themselves are greater; any rescue jacket and even the catheter that women in the menstrual period must use to “expel their liquids outside board”. THE children They then have a tariff dedicated to them around them 1 500 eurosagainst the 700-800 of adults because of the greater risk which constitute for traffickers if they are caught.
However it is clear that this is not the only one source of income on which these criminals can count since a quarter of the 220 Trafficers arrested During 2015 he was also active in drug trafficking And another quarter also operated in that of the exploitation of prostitution.
A “deafening silence”
A general is raged sense of addiction who seems to have infected public opinion. Even the “The Migranti Files” project, created to monitor the phenomenon of the exploitation of migrants and winner of the “Data Journalism Award” in 2014 and the “European Press Prize” in 2015, had to close The doors in 2016 for lack of funds. Pope Francis he often spoken on the subject, in particular on the occasion of dramatic shipwrecks of “carts of the sea” that caused dozens or even hundreds of victims But without any tangible result by the political class. The migratory question raises not only issues of justice and rights, but also the human and economic cost of a system that feeds exploitation And tragedies.
