The unsafe journey to safety
- erasmusplusnorway
- Feb 8, 2017
- 2 min read
What people are the most vulnerable? Many would agree that it is in fact people that have no sort of protection from the government, such as the refugees who are fleeing without a proper documented process just trying to stay alive. With the current flood of refugees into Europe, I feel like it’s highly overlooked just in which state people are traveling and what dangers they meet on the road to a hopefully safer place than their home.
59.5 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced at the end of 2014, as a result of persecution, conflict and human rights violations, the highest level on record. Now we know where at least most of these people went, mostly Europe and other asylum giving countries but do we know how the road to asylum looks like?
In only the first half of the 2015, more than 137,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, traveling in horrific conditions upon unsafe boats and dinghies. It is not known how many more have tried but in April was the biggest marked disaster concerning the transport. In April of 2015 more than 800 people died in a ship wreck. This just goes on to tell about only the technical issues of the transport and the bad organization that resulted from the state of the country they left.
Another highly overlooked issue is the danger from human predators. These are people that legally don’t exist, this is where criminal gangs will gather and take advantage of those unprotected by the law. From body slavery to sexual abuse, all of it happens. It is well known that there are very many children that are alone, without their parents or anyone to escort them. These are the most vulnerable kids and it is no mistake to think that predators such as pedophiles don’t have a presence there.
The hygienic status of almost all of those ships is unfit for human life. People don’t have a place or products that they could clean themselves with regularly. This results in quick spread of diseases and parasites such as lice and all the diseases they carry along. There aren’t enough resources to stop it from spreading once it begins and that almost always ends catastrophic for the people that are stuck on the ships.
Upon landing in Europe there is also the problem of reception capacity and conditions in countries they arrive in. Some countries offer less than 3,000 places of reception meanwhile 19,000 people can come in one week only. This is where they are the most fragile and open to criminal abuse.
These conditions are in no way humane or acceptable. We live in the 21st century and not helping people in need, innocent people that could’ve just as easily been either you or me is something to be ashamed of.
Sources: UNHCR
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