Deisy Ventura is a Professor of International Law and lectures at the International Relations Institute of the University of São Paulo (IRI-USP), Professor at the Public Health Faculty (FSP) of USP and member of the Coordinating Committee of the Graduate Program in Global Health and Sustainability. She holds a Doctor’s degree in International Law and a Master’s degree in European Law from the European University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne. She has a degree in Law and a Master’s degree in Latin American Integration from the Federal University of Santa Maria. She also coordinates, at the IRI, the extension project Cosmopolis on migration policies (a partnership between USP and the Municipality of São Paulo).
In an interview to Panorama, Deisy Ventura evaluates the migration policies in developed and developing countries and considers the difference between migrants and refugees more and more tenuous. In the global context, the researcher argues that migration ends up being desired in conditions that attend to the labor market needs, not the migrants’ rights. Deisy also criticizes the role of international powers in the crisis of Syrian refugees and, when it comes to Brazil, she points out the urgent need for an adequate legislation and coordination between the federation units and the different sectors so that migration and asylum do not generate humanitarian or political crises whenever a new migration flow takes place.
Panorama: What is your general view of international migration in the current global geopolitical context?
The current migration cycle, which began in the 80s, is a slow and continuous process, linked to the deepening of the economic inequalities between the countries, the changing forms of production brought about by economic globalization, and some other specific factors, namely armed conflict, ethnic or religious persecution and natural disasters.
Mireille Delmas-Marty refers to globalization as a “factory of migrants”, in the sense that workers move in search of employment and a decent life. However, developed countries have adopted increasingly restrictive immigration policies. Developing countries, on the other hand, do not usually adopt restrictive policies of entry into their territories, but do not encourage migratory regularization and access to rights either. Thus, the right to migrate is the human rights’ poor relative. While only about 40 States have adhered to the 1990 United Nations Convention on the rights of migrant workers and their families, most of the international human rights treaties are signed by well over 100 States. In Brazil, for example, this convention has been processed in Congress for years, and the Foreigner’s Statute, inherited from the military dictatorship, still is the current law.
The non-recognition of the right to migrate seems to be a big contradiction of the economic globalization ideal, which lists, among its touted advantages, an unprecedented freedom of movement of people, made possible by the extraordinary progress in the transportation sector. However, I believe that it is not a contradiction, but a feature: the freedom of movement that actually finds full support in contemporary society is the one linked to tourism and business or to people whose income is high enough that their free establishment in another country is not an obstacle. Thus, for globalization to work, it is necessary to encourage these flows. To the States is reserved, however, the prerogative to interrupt them at any time, for different reasons (economy, security, public health, etc.).
As for the migrant workers, it is not that their migration is unwanted; it may be desired, but under the often precarious conditions that meet the labor market demands and for as long as these workers are needed. Actually, it is the market that is free, not the people. Every time the rights of migrants are enshrined — both the right to migrate and, once the migrants are installed, the “right to have rights” (a phrase by Hannah Arendt, in her remarkable book on the origins of totalitarianism) —, the ability of both market players and States to get rid of unwanted contingent is reduced. This explains why countries with highly restrictive immigration policies keep a vast “black market” in which workers in an irregular migratory situation undergo equally irregular working conditions, which are often inhuman or similar to slavery.
Panorama: When the international migration flows (North-North, North-South and South-South) are addressed, socioeconomic factors are commonly listed to explain this phenomenon. However, when it comes to refugees, the subject is treated as a humanitarian crisis. Do you believe that migration should be treated differently?
The classic difference between asylum seeking and migration refers to the person’s will: in the first case, he/she is unable to stay, while in the second one he/she desires to leave. While the refugees’ international rights are quite consolidated in the Member States’ legislation, the right to migrate, as mentioned before, is still new in most countries. However, the difference between migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly tenuous. Although armed conflicts fully match the idea of the impossibility of staying in a territory, the collapse of a country’s economy, for example, can also easily lead us to believe that our livelihood will soon disappear. I reckon that neither migration nor asylum should be approached from a humanitarian perspective. Obviously assistance should be provided to refugees in their displacement and upon their arrival to the destination country, but the only approach that can effectively respond to the sharp increase in forced displacements is the attainment of peace in conflict regions and the reduction of inequalities between States. One cannot counteract the effects without tackling the causes — and now, on the contrary, developed countries have largely contributed to the deepening of both the armed conflicts in their areas of interest and the economic inequalities.
Panorama: How do you evaluate the role of international powers in the Syrian refugees’ crisis?
The international powers have played a shameful role in flagrant breach of their own laws on asylum. Unfortunately, the electoral appropriation of themes regarding migration and asylum by the extreme right wing has led governments of all stripes to address the current flow of Syrian refugees as a problem to be tackled through stricter border control and legislation. Regrettably, we have now exceeded the number of refugees of World War II and the images broadcast from Europe show an open air, real time humanitarian tragedy. This, however, has not made the world powers review their policies on the Middle East and especially their attitude towards Syria. The bomb attacks that took place in Paris in November last year have contributed both to stigmatize Syrian refugees and for France to get further involved in the ongoing conflicts.
Panorama: The refugees’ crisis in the Middle East and Africa has intensified the already complex issue of international migration flows. What is your opinion about that?
In my opinion, the numbers are very helpful in this assessment, although many of the available statistics deserve criticism, especially for their incompleteness. Nevertheless, the figures available allow us to understand that the vast majority of refugees is in developing countries (according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 86% of them), most of which living in refugee camps in Turkey, Pakistan and Lebanon (which hosts 30% of all refugees), as well as in Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan and Kenya. In other words, Europe is by no means the region with the largest flow of refugees. It is estimated that today there are more than 60 million forcibly displaced people, more than 20 million of which dislocated to a country that is different from the one in which they used to live (i.e., they are refugees), mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. As regards migration, according to the United Nations, 3.2% of the world’s population has remained largely unchanged since 1995, which now accounts for about 250 million people. If the international refugee law were obeyed, the current flow of Syrian migrants would not complicate the migration issue because the destination countries would be required to integrate these people into their societies until the armed conflicts ceased, for asylum, in principle, is a transitional legal status.
Panorama: Brazil has been receiving migratory flows of Syrian and Haitian refugees. How do you evaluate Brazil’s challenges and attitudes towards this issue?
First of all, I would like to mitigate this claim. Compared to other countries, Brazil has hosted few Syrian refugees. In July 2015, according to the UNHCR, Turkey, for example, welcomed 1.8 million Syrian refugees, while Lebanon received another 1.1 million of them. As for Haitian migrants, according to the specialized literature, there are three major migration poles: the Caribbean, North America and Europe. I am concerned about the false idea, often spread by the media, that Brazil has been impacted by a “wave” or an “invasion” of migrants and refugees. It is estimated that in the current migration cycle Brazil has a number of emigrants equivalent to or greater than the number of immigrants it welcomes.
I believe that Brazil has made plenty of progress in managing this issue, but we still have a long way to go. We urgently need an adequate legislation and coordination between the federative units and also between the different sectors so that migration and asylum do not cause humanitarian or political crises whenever a new flow takes place. The arrival of Haitians in Acre and their forwarding to São Paulo, for example, were a real comedy of errors. Migration is a highly positive phenomenon for the host countries, both from a cultural and an economic point of view. Asylum, on the other hand, is an ethical obligation of any society under the rule of law. Any of us can become a migrant or a refugee by will or by necessity. It is this awareness that the State and the Brazilian society lack, both often unable to overcome the rampant prejudice in our country in order to be able to see, in the black migrants and Arab refugees, the features of our ancestors — mainly Africans, Asians and Europeans, most of which poor and stray like today’s migrants —, who, after all, have built Brazil.
