25 - 31 October 2001
Issue No.557
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 25 - 31 October 2001 Issue No.557 |
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The homecoming
To leave one's country and begin life anew elsewhere is always a difficult experience. Now, Egyptians -- especially women -- are finding it more difficult than ever. Reem Leila reports
"People are so angry," says Omayma El-Husseini, a university student in Miami. El-Husseini is Egyptian, and a Muslim; she came to the US as a child. "My mother arrived in this country with little money, but big dreams. She went to night school and studied English until she could speak flawlessly, and finally got a job as a secretary," El-Husseini recounts. "Now we are thinking seriously of coming back to Egypt for good. We have been receiving threatening phone calls -- people saying they are going to kill us. It is terrifying."
The most recent figures released by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) indicate that there are over 4.3 million Egyptian emigrants worldwide, of which 39.4 per cent are women. Many Egyptians see emigration as a way to increase their opportunities and improve their standard of living. Today, however, they find themselves unsure of where to turn. Female migrants are particularly vulnerable: while uprooting is often worth the risk, they may face collective and individual discrimination, hostility and exploitation in their host country; they often have nothing to return to, and can be stigmatised for having transgressed taboos and tried to make it on their own.
Populations are on the move, though, and migration -- whether voluntary or forced -- is such a widespread phenomenon that it is of concern to governments around the world. Often, it is perceived negatively by host governments and communities; xenophobia provoked by recession and unemployment has also exacerbated hostility toward migrants.
Still, while no single set of standards exists to protect migrants' rights, Adel Fahmi, assistant for international cooperation to the minister of justice, argues that the international community has developed several organs that can be of relevance. Among these is the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), with which Egypt has concluded a treaty to protect its nationals abroad: the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrants (ICPRM). This treaty, says Fahmi, "reflects a growing awareness of the problems and discriminatory treatment that many migrants face."
Maya Hisham, a homemaker, lives in southern California with her husband, a banker, and their eight-year-old son Seif. Hisham, who wears a head scarf, has received threats that her son would be kidnapped and killed if she and her "terrorist family" did not leave the US. Although she disregarded them at first, she was terrified when Seif did not come back home after school one day. "I spent the rest of the day looking for him. I called the police, but they could not help. At 11.30 that night, I found him: he had been beaten, and dumped in our backyard. Now we have come back to Egypt -- just for a month or two, until everything calms down," says Hisham determinedly.
The ICPRM grants Egyptians, like other citizens, the right to live abroad in liberty and security, and to exercise their right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. "Egyptian embassy officials, US officials and other concerned authorities have developed preventive measures to protect Egyptian citizens [in the US and Europe] from hate crimes. We have succeeded in preventing or stopping quite a number of these crimes," says counselor Mohsen El-Atawi, assistant for Egyptian affairs abroad to the minister of justice. "Egypt has asked signatories of the ICPRM -- the US, several European countries and some Asian countries -- to apply the convention to Egyptian migrants. This is an attempt to reaffirm basic human rights."
For countries like Egypt, migration can act as a safety valve, since it eases pressure on domestic labour markets (and consequently reduces unemployment), raises real wages, creates a more skilled work force and generates cash remittances.
Cash transfers from migrants help raise the living standards of the families that remain at home. When spent domestically, these transfers can also have an impact on the national economy. Reda El-Edel, professor of economics at Ain Shams University, believes the uncertainty many Egyptian migrants now face in the US and Europe "hurts Egypt in financially and economically." In return, such insecurity could ultimately deprive the host countries of valuable skills brought by educated immigrants desperate to make good. While migration encourages the opening up of migrants' countries of origin, and their host countries, to the outside world, in times of crisis tolerance tends to be at a low ebb. And decreased tolerance, it seems, hurts everybody.
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