In a workshop focused on Migration and Youth in Ghana, participants emphasized the need for customized policies that effectively address the migration aspirations of young individuals.
They said such policies would also go a long way to encouraging the youth to take the right decisions to better their economic status and that of the country at large.
The Migration and Youth in Ghana project was a collaboration between the Centre for Migration Studies (CMS), the University of Ghana, Legon, and the Maastricht University, Netherlands.
The workshop was to highlight the findings of the studies conducted on youth migration aspirations and how these aspirations affect their lives.
Ms Onallia Esther Osei, a Ph.D. A student at Maastricht University, said the collaboration focused on the transnational family lives and how it shaped migrants’ and non-migrants lives, including their well-being.
She said in the case of young people, the project looked at children of migrants living in both destination countries and countries of origin, because it was important to gather perspectives of different groups mostly about the same issues, including mobility trajectories and migration aspirations.
She said: “That will help in understanding how things are either the same or even when people have different backgrounds or differ because of certain background characteristics, certain differences in their experience over time, or because people have different aspirations.”
Ms Osei said the workshop was on the migration aspirations of Ghanaian youths, including children of migrants living in Ghana.
She said the study revealed that almost every young person aspires to move “but the time they want to move out and how they want to move out are not the same.”
She urged all stakeholders and caregivers to guide the youth to make their migration aspirations to become an asset for the country as they were helped to improve their life chances within their well-being.
She also called on all actors in the migration industry, including scholars to have a strong desire to go beyond the pessimistic views of youth migration or migration aspirations and see how to harness these aspirations to their benefit and that of the country of origin.
Ms Osei said: “For example, there should be a specific-tailored system to aid the youth who preferred to stay in Ghana after completing secondary school so that they would be able to take advantage of the local tertiary training, understand how education really works in Ghana, improve their knowledge on the culture, the practices, and the life before they decide to go abroad or visit abroad and come back and still have the opportunity in Ghana to work.”
She added: “If there are no chances like that for the youth, then the majority of them will be aspiring to move as soon as they finish Senior High School or Bachelor degrees because they foresee that it would be difficult to find work in the country of origin if they stay or it will be difficult to enjoy family life as most of them hope to, or so many other challenges they outlined.”
She said challenges could be well addressed and that staying would not pose a bigger problem in the future could be curtailed and most people would not be thinking of just moving out.
She noted that addressing those challenges would also shape the current practices that the Government of Ghana and other destination countries were either trying to put in place or were enforcing, such as the mobility of teachers and nurses across borders.
“As much as we have a problem of shortage, if people think it is okay to go out to support within three to five years, at most ten years, and come back and still have a better life, they will not feel cheated by the government in whatever monies they have to get by going out to support the labour market outside, then people will be happy to move back and forth.
“Otherwise, most people, especially the youth, see that it is better to leave out there for their economic benefits than staying here and feeling trapped without better employment or living conditions,” she added.
Dr Balisuma Dito, from Maastricht University, emphasized the need to look at the long-term aspirations of the youth and assist them to achieve them.
She said young people represented the workforce of every country and it was important to harness their potential for socio-economic development.
Professor Mary Setrana, the Director of CMS, said the policy dialogue tied with the CMS’ key mandates and expressed their gratitude for the collaboration.
A series of studies conducted under the project outlined the frustrations and mental trauma the youth who failed to meet their migration aspirations go through and suggested counseling assistance for them.