Report debunks myths on migrants

A South African expert on migration has played a key role in helping to destroy some of the myths about migration being propagated in an increasingly xenophobic world.

Steven Tollman, of Wits University, is one of 20 experts from 13 countries who have spent two years researching migration and health.

The report he helped write, to be launched in SA in March, was tabled at a UN conference in Morocco on December 8.

Tollman said it was a “systematic assessment” of published research on migration and health. His main contribution was a paper on global patterns of mortality among international migrants.

The University College Lon- don-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health said its evidence overturned “groundless narratives” about migrants, in- cluding claims that they are:

● Disease carriers who pose a risk to resident populations;

● A burden on health services;

● Prone to having large families;

● Overwhelming populations in high-income countries; and

● Responsible for damaging economies.

In SA, there is “a massive gap in understanding internal migration”, Tollman said.

“There are profound data gaps in an area where opinion, perception and political advantage tend to take precedence.

“We seek to bring data and evidence to bear, to both counter prevailing myths and highlight the need to strengthen our understanding, which in the South African and regional arena, relates directly to internal, often labour, migrants.”

A critical question for SA was how labour migrants accessed good public healthcare.

“Resources are finite, but the answer is simply not to reject those who are not ‘us’.” Universal health coverage did not mean excluding migrants.

The commission told a UN conference in Marrakesh, convened to adopt a “global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration”, that the movement of people should be a global health priority.

There are profound data gaps where perception and political advantage tend to take precedence