The World's Forgotten People

Last week saw the UK media launch of a documentary by Delhi-based film maker Savyasaachi Jain, Door Kinare (Shores Far Away). The film does what mainstream media has longed failed to do – it gives a human face to illegal migrants.

The migrants who feature in the 48 minute film are not seen as criminals or as statistics. They are rather young men, with a desire to provide as much as they can for their families back home in the Punjab. They are equally men who have realised the hard way that illegal migration is not worth the life threatening travel conditions, exploitative treatment by agents and employers or the loss of dignity endured. They learnt this hard way and know that that they are now stuck in a rut of a life. They now want their shocking testimonies to ensure that other young men do not fall prey to blood sucking agents who falsely promise prosperity in the Western world.

Working with illegal migrants on a daily basis, such testimonies are nothing new to me. But yesterday I heard news that actually did shock me.

A middle aged man, who we had tried to help to get back to India had died. Another client, a young man from Pakistan had committed suicide. Both were illegal.

Sometimes, life in limbo gets the better of you.

The first gentleman had been found living on the streets. He had no status in the UK but equally had no means to get back to India. As is common practise, the agent ensured that the man had shredded his passport upon hitting British shores. First rule of the game, the authorities should not be able to identify your nationality.

We tried to get him back to India, but upon taking him to the Indian Embassy (that hellish place in Holborn) he was refused a travel document on the grounds that he had no proof he was Indian. Unfortunately his lack of English, perfect Punjabi and bright turban were not enough evidence of his Indian-ness. Unlike most other embassies, the Indian Embassy also do not see it necessary to interview such people to investigate whether or not they are telling the truth. A one to one interrogation on the facts and figures of their claimed family village may well prove them to be Indian.

Instead, such people are left lingering in limbo. Their country of origin refuses to take them back whilst their country of destination refuses to keep them. They are the forgotten people and continue to live life underground. The 1948 UN Declaration on Human Rights stating that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor denied the right to change his nationality” doesn't stand a chance in face of national legislations.

These people live on the fringes of society. They have committed an offense by entering the country through irregular channels but upon trying to rectify their error all doors are slammed shut. No mercy for the wicked it seems.

Of course the wider debate on illegal migration is always in the limelight. How do we match supply with demand? How to create structured migration schemes such as temporary or seasonal labour programmes? Should there be an amnesty?

But such debates are jumping the gun. The are thousands of illegal migrants living in the UK that want to go “home” but cannot -not because of war or fear of torture, but because of a piece of paper. This is no way to live. And that is why, some of them do not.