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Abstract
In this article we analyze the independent migration of Moroccan children and youth to Southern Europe. The key issue is represented not just by the appearance of the minor as a new migratory actor, but by the process of institutional manipulation of images and narratives related to them. We argue that this process is new for its way of shaping the public narrative of the migrant in Europe. This contribution aims to demonstrate how the process of derogatory classification set up for these migrants is influencing the representations of childhood in Morocco. We argue that this process is coherent with the ‘outsourcing’ of the management of European borders. We claim that the transnational alliance in category (re)production hinders the social change, maintaining lower class youth in their assigned social rank and space. In this sense, independent migration represents a breach of the confinement and an investment in an ‘elsewhere’ which contrasts symmetrically with the prescribed social stillness of the contexts of origin.
Notes
‘A crime is taking place near us and, surprisingly, we are only afraid of the victims’.
Paralelo 36, 2004, DVD 65 Min. Camera and direction: José Luis Tirado, ZAP Producciones.
An appropriate assessment of their number is quite difficult, owing to the incompatible methods of registration among European countries. A comprehensive statistic may be sketched only in the case of minors applying for asylum. In this case, according to a comparative study undertaken in 22 member states, 11.292 applications formulated by ‘separated children’ were received in 2008, while 20.237 would have been the minors lodged in specific facilities provided by the European administrations (European Migration Network Citation2010). Among them, main nationalities are Morocco, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Egypt. They are mainly male and their age is mostly distributed around 16 and 17 (but some quite precocious cases are also noteworthy).
We do not discount the personal risk nor the many possible consequences of the precocious exposition to conditions of danger, abuse, or exploitation (see, for instance, Jiménez Alvarez Citation2004, Vacchiano Citation2008, 2010), but we consider the public distorted discourse on agency as one of the main risk factors, which hampers the social inclusion of migrating children in the host countries.
Both authors have realized a long research in Morocco for their PhD in Anthropology. Mercedes Jiménez has been living in Morocco since 1997 and obtained her PhD at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2011. Francesco Vacchiano is a clinical psychologist and has been working in Morocco since 2001. He obtained his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Turin in 2008.
Deriving its name from the typical wooden fishing boat traditionally used in the area of Cadiz, the term is by extension applied to all ‘irregular’ migrants' ships crossing the Straits of Gibraltar.
Tangier's peripheral neighborhood, its name originating from the ancient ‘Plaza de Toros’, dating from the city's international period.
Literally this is the plural of ‘arobyy’: ‘peasant’, ‘countryman’, but it is used by city-dwellers as derogatory appellation (‘boor’) for Moroccans coming from other regions. In this case, it is applied to the non-tangerines, coming mainly from El Kelaa, Beni Mellal, and other rural areas and passing through Tangier to emigrate.
We have known Ismā‘īl in the office of a Moroccan association, when he was just illegally repatriated from Barcelona. He spent the following months in the port of Tangier trying to cross again. Finally, he succeeded in 2009 and now he is making a living in Brussels.
Despite this general trend, a recent research carried out in the port of Tangier (INAS and Al Khaima Maroc Citation2007) revealed the presence of three young girls living in the street, disguised as males in order to avoid harassment.
A more accurate description of the phenomenon and its implications for Morocco and Europe are available in Jiménez Álvarez Citation2004, Unicef Maroc Citation2005, Suárez Navaz Citation2006, Monteros Obelar Citation2009, Quiroga et al. Citation2010, and Vacchiano Citation2010.
‘Third-country nationals below the age of 18, who arrive on the territory of the Member States unaccompanied by an adult responsible for them whether by law or custom, and for as long as they are not effectively in the care of such a person’ (European Council Resolution 97/C 221/03 of 26 June 1997 on unaccompanied minors who are nationals of third countries).
European countries, as subscribers and enforcers of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (20 November 1989), are formally required to fully assume the responsibility of protection (in terms of primary needs, education, and social insertion) of all minors on their territory.
We consider part of this system not only the most manifest means of control (barriers, fences, patrols, visas and papers), but also the bureaucratic apparatus implementing them, as well as the complex system of ‘microphysical’ tools applied far from the geographical projection of border and redefining the status of subjectivities.
Instrucción del Fiscal General del Estado n. 6/2003.
‘Foreigners older than 16, who live independently from their fathers and with their consent […] have the capacity to manage their person and property as if they were older’ (Attorney's General Officer of Spain n. 6/2003).
This fact is acknowledged in two sentences of the Spanish Constitutional Court of the 22nd of December 2008: STC 22.12.2008 (Recurso de Amparo 3319–2007) and STC 22.12.2008 (Recurso de Amparo 3321–2007).
It is a strategy already promoted by Italian government in the 1990s in order to foster the return of Albanian minors: it consisted in making use of the resources of international cooperation for building up ‘reinstation centers’ run by NGOs and aimed at providing the ‘repatriated’ with accommodation, training, and education. This policy, as stated by a high functionary of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is not applicable to Morocco for the resistance of authorities and families.
In its last report, the Moroccan High Council of Education (al-Majlis al-A‘lā li-l-Ta‘līm) highlights that only 50% of the students enrolled in primary education achieve the secondary level. The 80% of rural schools is devoid of bathrooms, 75% of water, and 9.000 classrooms have been declared ‘insalubrious’ in 2007 (Royaume du Maroc – Conseil Supérieur de l'Enseignement Citation2008).
According to the last general census, in 2004 almost 40% of the Moroccan population was under 18 and 51.8% under 25 (Royaume du Maroc – Haute Commissariat au Plan Citation2004).
National average of unemployment in urban areas: 14.6% (Royaume du Maroc – Haut Commissariat au Plan Citation2008).
The appellation derives from the local pronunciation of the French term ‘carrière’ (‘quarry’), for the peculiar location, at the beginning of the twentieth century, of Casablanca's slums, originally placed in proximity to dismissed quarries. It is noteworthy that, according to Adam, French term ‘bidonville’ is supposed to have been specifically coined to describe Casablanca's kariyāne, assembled with the first industrial wastes of the city (Adam Citation1968).
The dialogue was held with the valuable help of Tāreq, a 21 year old youth of the neighborhood and member of a local association. In the muddy area that preceded the settlement a dozen bovines were grazing in the trash of a small dump heap. Tāriq was at ease, since he is well-known and recognized in the area: he soon stopped a boy in shorts and slippers to start an interview himself, tape recorder in hand. It was an initiative of great confidence and familiarity, in a context that I knew to be very sensitive and controlled. In the end, the dialogue was interrupted by the ‘moqaddem’, a functionary of the Ministry of the Interior supervising the neighborhood, who asked us for our papers and gently, but firmly, suggested to leave.
Some very recent experiences are trying to breach in new ways the imposed silence. On one side, hip hop music, composed in vernacular Arabic and diffused through internet, is coming to address some social themes such as urban segregation, violence in slums, hopelessness of youth and, almost ubiquitously, migration. On the other side, following the contemporary wave of change in the Arab world, a movement called ‘Shabab 20 Febrair’ (‘youth of the 20th of February’) is leading a process which joins different political subjects in public demonstrations against corruption and for a new constitution. This form of taking the floor is stirring up many reactions, among which direct threats to them and their families and a campaign of discredit. Committed youth are accused of being alcoholic, addicted, and sacrilegious. Notwithstanding, demonstrations forced king Mohamed VI to a public speech on 9th of March 2011, promising a new constitutional process in the attempt of subtracting initiative to this emerging subject.
Today, the situation has changed, showing even deeply the impact of the social contradictions. The port of Tangier is now in a process of intense gentrification, according to a plan aimed at transforming the old commercial area in a touristic harbor. The commercial traffic has moved to the new ‘Tanger Med Port’, located 30 km far from the city, and young ‘harrāga’ have followed the flux of commodities (see further).
European Commission, Action Plan on Unaccompanied Minors (2010–2014), finally agreed in Brussels on 6th May 2010.
‘The first infantile boat’.
European Commission, Action Plan on Unaccompanied Minors, chapter 5: ‘Finding durable solutions’ (p. 12).
