Male Migration and The Back Way

On the Human Development Index (HDI), just five spots above Afghanistan, sits The Gambia as the 17th least developed country in the world. While that’s partly due to its size—it’s the smallest mainland African country, after all—it’s also indicative of the myriad range of problems facing Gambians, particularly regarding (the lack of) health, education, and wealth. The latter, at least in terms of economic opportunity, even has a far more visible indicator: male migration and The Back Way.

Many people in the West are aware of The Back Way without really knowing it. Whenever a ship capsizes with large numbers of migrants in the Mediterranean on its way from North Africa to Italy or Greece, that’s a ship carrying folks going The Back Way. It is an incredibly dangerous and arduous journey that takes people, predominately young men, from across sub-Saharan Africa through the Sahara and up to the coast, where they pile into overcrowded, unsafe boats in the hopes of a better economic future. Too often, those boats fail to make their destination. More recently, an even more dangerous route has gained popularity (and notoriety) originating in northern Senegal and carrying West Africans north across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands and Spain. The success rate is abysmal, leaving many dead or presumed dead, missing, or rescued (and often, subsequently imprisoned). For many who are not fortunate enough to reach Europe, but lucky enough to step foot back on Senegalese soil, they say that, rather than being deterred, they will just be waiting for their next chance to brave the harrowing journey once more.

While the loss of human life is horrifying in any form, this is particularly bad for countries like The Gambia, which seems to be hemorrhaging its young male population. Not only that, many of the boys left behind can end up somewhat hopeless, internalizing the idea that the only way to get a better life or to be a real man is to go The Back Way, not to work on anything within the village or The Gambia more generally. Some of these boys can be seen sitting around, drinking attaya, playing and watching football, but not contributing significantly to their communities. So, not only does The Back Way take a prime working demographic away from the country—albeit occasionally producing success stories who send back money for their families—but it demoralizes many of the rest.

It’s interesting to consider, but the young male population might just be the forgotten demographic of aid. There is very good reason to prioritize women and children, don’t get me wrong, but I think we must consider the massive amounts of male migration as a failure of development work to get it right. Without making sure we include the demographic that we commonly assume has power and a voice (and to a degree, it’s not wrong to think that), we end up with a demoralized group of workers that, particularly in a gender-stratified culture like this, contributes very little to the betterment of their communities. Since women are often assigned roles that keep them busy every day, they do not have time to build infrastructure, plant trees, start new initiatives, or contribute to other forward-facing activities—that’s assigned to the men. But when the men are waiting to leave, leaving, or dying, then progress halts, and we fail to achieve much of anything.

As with many of these widespread, societal-level issues, solutions are not easy. I want to say that the answer is simply in making village life livable, and certainly, there is something to be said for projects that, over time, bring clean and convenient water, electricity, fruits and vegetables, economic opportunity (although these tend to be geared particularly toward women), shade and cooler temperatures, robust health care, and other important amenities. My hope as an extension worker is that these types of projects can inspire the young men of my village to do the same, understanding that the more they plant and build now, the better their own futures will be. However, despite all these possible improvements, I’m not sure the deep-held belief in The Back Way can be displaced without systemic changes.

So, until the systems-that-be begin to consider young men as a vulnerable population and work to build economic opportunities for them within their own countries, it’s likely that you’ll continue reading about the massive migration crises, even from reasonably peaceful and stable societies like The Gambia. By ignoring this population in a gender-stratified society, we also run the risk of losing out on the knock-on benefits that their inclusion could provide for the groups we want to help in the first place. With that looking unlikely for now, it’s hard to imagine The Gambia moving up on the HDI with any haste.