Risking lives beyond borders: reflections on the international migration scenario

Ahsan A.K.M. Ullah, City University of Hong Kong

Contemporary migration, a byproduct of ongoing globalization, has come to the forefront of today’s debate about human movement worldwide. The severe scarcity of work opportunities in the home countries of potential migrants, who take the risk of crossing their own territorial boundaries in search of economic emancipation, has produced a genre in current migration literature. Better opportunities in the north and the south also attract most of the intending migrants through trans-border routes without the authorities knowing the real cost of their movements. This paper, based on current literature, the media and our own experience, reviews the scenario of international migration and examines how intending migrants from the least developed countries in the world embark on life-threatening adventures and often end their journey imprisoned or even dead. The flow of migration has not diminished despite increasingly severe policies implemented to control illegal migration, which have had some limited success.