Blog 7: Ethiopia bans citizens from traveling abroad for
work
The Ethiopian
government has temporarily banned its citizens from traveling abroad to look
for work. The foreign ministry says that
they banned was placed because many Ethiopians had lost their lives or
undergone physical and psychological trauma do to illegal human trafficking.
The decision to place the ban was meant to keep the citizens safe. The travel
ban will only remain until a lasting solution is found. The ministry also says that the government had
taken many various measures that would limit the suffering of the citizens,
which included setting up a national council and a taskforce to educate them. Unfortunately,
the measures that were placed were not able to address the problem very sufficiently.
The fact that Ethiopia has such few jobs available to its citizens is one of
the major factors that are fueling the emigration to other countries. The youth
unemployment is officially estimated at more than 50%. Many human rights
activists say a significant number of the classified economic migrants flee
because of political and economic oppression or ethnic discrimination by the
state. Many Ethiopians try to flee to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Europe. These
people are often smuggled, trafficked, or tortured by either mental or physical
ways. But once they reach their destinations, the problems don’t stop there;
many require humanitarian assistance or face a wide range of abuses from the
employers.
When
reading this article we see that many people are still suffering from human
trafficking. Some people might only think that this happens in other countries
that are poor or that are considered “3rd world”, but in fact this
happens in our own backyard. The government took it upon themselves to try to
protect their citizens from going through these horrible things. Unfortunately,
like most people, if they are told they are not allowed to do things, even if
it is for their own good, they will still do it. This ban will just fuel the
fire and make people want to leave more so than ever. This ban will also
probably cause the conditions of the trafficking and smuggling to become much
worse for the people who are going through this. Human rights activists have stepped in and
said that the lack of jobs is not the only reason people are fleeing from the
country but also they are leaving because of political and economic oppression.
The people that are flee are not only suffering in their home country but also
when they get to where they are going, they are subject to abuse from the employers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24663049
Lindsay Gebbia
10/28/13
11:23 a.m.
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