The Civic Scribe: Articles & Poems

The Mediterranean Sea doesn’t give up its dead easily. Last month, a boat carrying 64 Gambian migrants – mostly youths dreaming of Europe – capsized off Tunisia’s coast. Only four survived. This tragedy, one of countless similar episodes, epitomizes the grim paradox of “the Backway”: the perilous irregular migration route that has become a perverse lifeline for The Gambia’s economy while devouring its future. As remittances from abroad soar to record heights, the bodies of young Gambians wash ashore with equally shocking regularity. This is not merely a humanitarian crisis; it is a national development strategy built on despair.

The Allure of the Backway
The Gambia, mainland Africa’s smallest nation, suffers from colossal economic failures. Youth unemployment exceeds 41%, national poverty hovers near 50%, and agricultural livelihoods are crumbling under climate change. Against this backdrop, Europe gleams like an oasis. Income per capita in The Gambia is $778 – just 2% of Italy’s $33,228. With legal migration pathways virtually nonexistent, youths gamble on the Backway: a brutal overland trek through Mali and Niger, across the Sahara, and onto overloaded boats in Libya bound for Europe.

The journey is a catalogue of horrors: desert crossings where a bottle of water becomes a matter of life or death, and migrants face organ hunters, trafficking, and betrayal; Libyan detention centers where abuse, slavery, and torture are rampant; Mediterranean voyages with death rates so high that one returnee lamented, “I saw deaths upon deaths.”

Yet a significant majority of Gambian youth surveyed recently said they would migrate to Europe if given the chance. For villages like Njaba Kunda, which lost thousands of residents to Europe and hundreds to deaths en route, the Backway is embedded in social DNA.

The Remittance Mirage
The Backway’s economic impact is a double-edged sword. Remittances now constitute nearly half of The Gambia’s GDP, financing homes, education, and small businesses. Diaspora-funded enterprises create some local jobs. However, this comes at a devastating human cost: rural communities are drained of young workers, crippling agriculture and stunting development. Some villages have few young men left, weakening the labor force for generations.

This remittance dependency masks governmental failures. As one analyst notes, “The Gambian government has outsourced its welfare system to migrants.” When COVID-19 slashed tourism revenue, remittances paradoxically surged. The state’s reliance on this cash flow creates a perverse incentive to ignore the human cost.

Policy Failures and Half-Measures
International efforts to curb Backway migration have been ineffective or misguided. Major funds prioritized border control over job creation. Information campaigns warning of the Backway’s dangers showed no significant impact on migration intentions. When alternatives weren’t offered, youths dismissed the messaging as fearmongering.

Returnee programs also failed catastrophically. Gambians repatriated from Libyan detention camps received little reintegration support, leading to protests. Most returnees feel nobody cares, leading to rising resentment and attempts to migrate again.

A Roadmap for Reform
The Gambia must confront this crisis with policies that offer hope, not just warnings. Solutions include:

1. Replace Deterrence with Economic Diversification: Revive agriculture and tourism through climate-resilient investments, unlocking The Gambia’s significant eco-tourism potential. Public-private partnerships could develop river-based tourism, agro-processing, and high-value hotels. Crucially, unlock diaspora investment by simplifying burdensome business registration and offering tax incentives for ventures funded from abroad.
2. Transform Education and Vocational Training: Align school curricula with labor market needs, emphasizing tech, engineering, and green skills. Scale up vocational programs with guaranteed job linkages through industry partnerships, which have proven effective in reducing migration intentions.
3. Create Legal Migration Pathways: Negotiate seasonal work visas with the EU. Facilitate safer migration to closer destinations, which has reduced Europe-bound intentions. Expand student exchanges and circular migration to build skills abroad for domestic application.
4. Center Returnees and Communities: Launch a dedicated National Backway Task Force to replace outdated laws that conflate voluntary migrants with trafficking victims. Engage returnees as educators; groups using lived experience to dissuade migrants have proven far more effective than traditional awareness campaigns.

Conclusion: Breaking the Cycle
The Backway is a symptom of a state that has abdicated its duty to youth. As one migrant poignantly stated: “I decided to take the risk to take my family out of extreme poverty.” No awareness campaign can compete with that imperative.

The Gambia stands at a crossroads: continue outsourcing its future via rickety boats, or invest fiercely in a homegrown prosperity that makes migration a choice, not a necessity. The solutions—economic diversification, skills training, and legal pathways—are known. What’s missing is the political courage to fund them at scale. Until then, the Mediterranean’s tides will keep carrying Gambia’s dreams and dead back to shore.