Another Wall Faced by Migrants in Latin America

ENGLISH A large proportion of the 4.3 million migrant workers in Latin America and the Caribbean survive by working in the informal economy or in irregular conditions. An invisible wall that is necessary to bring down, together with discrimination and xenophobia.

“Looking for work is just one of the causes, but not the only one, or even a decisive one,” said Julio Fuentes, president of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Public Sector Workers (CLATE). “I believe the determining factors driving migration are poverty, low wages, lack of access to health and education services, and the unfair distribution of wealth in our countries.”

The study “Labor migration in Latin America and the Caribbean,” released in August 2016 by the International Labor Organization (ILO), identifies 11 main migration corridors used by workers throughout this region, including nine intraregional, South-South corridors that connect countries in the region, and two extra-regional South-North corridors connecting with the United States and Spain.

According to the report, this network is constantly evolving due to changes in economic interdependence and labor markets, and has been expanding in volume, dynamism and complexity, growing from 3.2 million migrants in 2011 to 4.3 million at the start of 2016.

Denis Rojas, a Colombian sociologist with the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), mentioned from Buenos Aires other intra-regional migratory causes based on the experience of her compatriots in Argentina.

“It is necessary to bear in mind that the migration to Argentina seen in the past few decades is of different types: one well-identified group is that of generally middle-class pro- fessionals, who in view of the high costs and the constraints of access to postgraduate education in Colombia, decide to look for other options abroad, with Argentina being a country of interest due to its wide educational offer and accessible costs in comparison with Colombia,” she told IPS.

Moreover, “several years ago, the number of families sending their children to study in Argentina started increasing due to the high tuition costs in Colombian universities and extensive structural limitations to access education. It is similar to the case of Chile,” she said.

But although the main driver of this current of migration is access to education, Rojas doesn’t rule out labor causes.

“It responds fundamentally to Colombians’ need to enter the labor market. Due to the unemployment and a pervasive flexibilization of labor standards, people believe that a higher level of education will give them a chance for a better income and better jobs,” she said.

Another group of migrants, she said, are those who were driven out of their homes by Colombia’s armed conflict. They range from poor peasant families and laborers to students and better-off activists. (IPS)