Why Tanzania destination comes first to illegal immigrants’ minds

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A geographical reason is the main cause why there are illegal migrants in Tanzania, since it is easier for them to travel in boarded countries.
Tanzania is the first country that comes to migrants’ minds because it shares boarders with other eight countries.

There is no need for visa from Ethiopia to Kenya, so that makes it easy for Ethiopians to come to Tanzania because it only takes 13 hours to travel from Kenya to Tanzania by bus.

Ethiopia is in top notch countries in Africa that practices human trafficking to East Africa because out of 7,000 illegal migrants caught in Tanzania, 6000 of them are Ethiopians, the Ministry of Home Affairs has confirmed.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has more departments than any other ministry in the government; some of them are specifically for refugee while others are for immigration services.

Immigration service department is the safety and security institute in Tanzania. Its main duty is to facilitate and control people’s movements such as foreigners’ legal entry and blocks the illegal migrants.

Human trafficking and Illegal migrants are the two main cases that Immigration department deals with.

Human trafficking is reported to be the number three top illegal business in the world, and Tanzania is one among the countries that fight against it.

Explaining how the human trafficking is done, the Public Relations Officer of Immigration Service Department Tanzania, Tatu Burhan said the human traffickers classify them in groups and send them to different countries.

“In Ethiopia, human trafficking is very popular. They pack them in groups and send them to the countries at the border. So we capture them at Mbeya or Tunduma when they are heading to South Africa, she said.

Tatu added that the illegal migrants risk their lives due to push and pull factors such as job availability. She said during the previous World Cup for instance, these individuals were told there are plenty of jobs in South Africa, so everyone wanted to go and grab one.

However, political instability is another reason. Most of migrants, who are refugees from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi, opt to stay back even when their countries retain stability.

Like other citizens refugees have special permit that identify them but unfortunately whenever their permits expire, they do not take required steps, rather they choose to stay illegally.

Over ten years there have been more than 500,000 refugees in Tanzania. The government has succeeded in bringing them back home and shut down 11 refugee camps.

Currently there is only one refugee camp left called Nyarugusi, which accommodates about 60,000 refugees of whom 4000 are Burundi citizens and the rest from DRC.

According to the Ministry’s spokesperson Isaac Nantanga, the 4000 Burundi refugees will not be able to go back to their country due to security reasons according to United Nations Laws.

“The refugees from Burundi will keep staying here because they can’t go back to their countries. But the US has shown interest in taking them.
However in identifying them the ministry is currently carrying verification exercise that will help to verify monitoring them to know who the genuine refugees are.

“There is implementation to identify them,” he said.
Last year Tanzania attempted Kimbunga operation which involved three regions of Kagera, Kigoma and Geita, for a three-months period.

A total of 31,203 illegal migrants were netted in the operation. A total of 18,867 of refugees were from Burundi, some 10,376 illegal migrants from Rwanda, 1805 from Uganda, 136 from DRC and 20 from Zambia.
Between January to March, 1406 illegal migrants were netted of whom 1390 are Ethiopia and 16 from Somali.

Speaking on the challenges, Tatu told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that, the government enters a huge cost after capturing them.

“We take them to prison for one to two years but everything is in the control of Tanzania government. We feed them, deport them back home or at times cooperate with their embassy but still it costs the government,” she said.
Nevertheless Tatu has also explained why her department keeps the strict conditions in getting passport.

She said most of them provide wrong information upon request of their passport. Others forge as a result the country faces the problem of illegal occupants.

Recently the government announced to the relatives of 37 Tanzanians who were prisoners in Pakistan, but only 12 people turned out. This shows that upon requesting the passports the residents fill in the wrong information.

The country spends at least 600 US Dolllars for one deportee and about 800 Tanzanians are deported each year. As a result the country’s reputation is been distorted.

In order to curb illegal migrants, Tanzania looks forwards to make new passports which will have the security features.

Human trafficking, described as “modern-day slavery”, is the recruitment and transportation of people from one place to another or one country to another, through the use of deception or force for the sole purpose of exploitation.
The two terms human trafficking and illegal migrants are all related, and there is no much difference between them except that illegal migrants are not necessary human trafficked.

The world fact book has reported the statement given by The International Labor Organization (ILO), the UN agency charged with addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues, estimates that 12.3 million people worldwide are enslaved in forced labor, bonded labour, forced child labour, sexual servitude, and involuntary servitude at any given time.