By Dr Muhammed Teks Tekanyi
It is true that almost everyone wants to live to advanced age because such a milestone comes with a lot of pride – both social and economical for those that planned life well.
However, aging, like wealth, doesn’t come in growth without challenges but unlike wealth, aging comes with numerous challenges from economic to health and even societal pressures like basic family needs to care for the elderly.
This is characteristic in the West where most if not all of those challenges are being shifted to the government including but not limited to even the provision of moral support. But how does the phenomenon of an aging population relate to the ‘backway’ syndrome?
People may be a little confused about how the ‘backway’ curse can be related to The Gambia falling into the risk of struggling with an aging population in the near future. Genuine concern, but it shouldn’t be surprising to note that life is a cycle with successive replacements for each stage of the cycle as it goes through its natural course of transition.
The effects of a growing loss of the youthful population are numerous but can be characterised into the following:
Health effects
In general the needs of a healthcare system increases with the increase in the aging population and it gets worse when there is shortage in the human resource needed to maintain the economic activities of a country in order to finance the country’s healthcare needs but most especially the elderly. The reason is that this aging population often reaches a stage in life in which they are less if not nonproductive but more demanding on the healthcare system through vulnerability to and frequency of their ill health needs. Therefore, as they get sicker, the more government will need in revenue to finance hospitals and other social services to meet their needs. However, this need of revenue production and in fact servicing of the hospitals will require the availability of able men and women which would be absent with this increasing loss of young men and women through the ‘backway’. The end result will not only be added expenditure on the cost of healthcare for the elderly but would include the outsourcing of services, acquisition of human resource from outside and of course nonfunctional health facilities and many other institutions that will need skilled human resources to maintain them. So in addition to increasing cost in maintaining the health needs of the aging population, there will also be shortage in the workforce required to maintain a functional and better healthcare delivery system all due to the lost in the youthful population through the ‘backway’.
Economic effects
On the basis of the economic effects of an aging population, both the formal and informal work sector can become victims. This is very important to note especially in relation to the economy of the country because the more people age, the more their economic activities become diminished if not nonfunctional. Therefore when the many, as in the young people, that are required to provide continuity of the economic activities both in the formal and informal sectors thus keep the economy of the country afloat are being lost daily through the ‘backway’, it directly and indirectly affect both the economic activities and the economy of the country thereby creating an imbalance between revenue generation and spending – of the government. And such situations can gravely affect the economy of the country thereby breeding socioeconomic problems that endanger the lives and livelihoods of the everyday people such as increase criminality, deteriorating healthcare services, poor education systems, high cost of living, and so forth.
Societal and social effects
There are numerous effects on society and they only increase with increasing breakage in the life cycle due to loss of young men and women in the sea. Some of these effects range from breakages in the family chain, increase shortage of helping hands both in the households and in the communities, unavailability of men and of course women for marriage for the continuity of the family cycle, lost of leadership and support for families and communities, increased insecurity at homes and in the society and many other social problems such as absence of support in hanging or reaching out for clothes for the elderly in the households.
Other effects
The many other effects will be but not limited to increasing crime rates due to the mass influx of foreign nationals, the extinction of our culture due to lack of assimilation and the institutionalisation of foreign culture, the lost independence and sovereignty due to growth in influence of foreign and external factors, lost of power and leadership to people that are not indigenous of the country and many other sociopolitical factors. And it will take a long time if not forever to correct such costly sociopolitical and economic factors as seen around the world in countries currently married to conflicts emanating from the lost of sovereignty and independence to foreign nationals and powers especially in the Middle East.
Solutions
To address this curse, policymakers must first accept the fact it is both a short and long-term problem that requires urgent action to prevent the birth of consequences from inaction resulting in catastrophic cost on society. In recognition the phenomenon as a concerning problem, the government must formulate policies aimed at addressing both the short term and long term challenges of the problem which could be many but below are few:
Short-term solutions
1 – Incentivise information gathering to help in the quick and efficient acquisition of information needed in intercepting plans of engaging in such perilous journey. Most of these trips are planned, advertised and managed within the communities hence when information is monetised, disruption occurs thereby reducing if not eliminating the whole process. Because the actors will now know that there are people within the communities who will be earning from the mere reportage of the criminality they are engaged on in smuggling uninformed and helpless youths as meals for marine animals.
2 – Increased and random patrols: When information becomes adequate and readily available, precision, as essential as it is, becomes improved and outcomes rewarding. This is needed in identifying targets, timely apprehension of suspects and overall prevention of the journey to save lives. The patrols must be random and unannounced with key members of the communities as stakeholders to help in locating and identifying suspects. That would be helpful in disrupting the coordination that the smugglers need in maintaining this blood sucking business of perishing lives.
3 – Community-led sensitisation: Research has shown that when interventions against societal problems are community driven with little support, they yield more and fastest results than when the interventions are imposed on them. Therefore, it will be key for the line ministry and departments to handover the sensitisation task to the community and spiritual leaders who are the people that daily relate with the would be victims of this perilous journey. Train them, give them the resources while supporting them from the back and see how effective the interventions will become.
4 – Resource mobilisation: The immigration department must be provided with the resources needed in gathering information, conducting unannounced patrols as well as help in apprehending smugglers at any and every given time. Such support is of paramount importance in the timely disruption of the chain of smuggling victims thereby preventing continuity. The success of any intervention is centered on the promise of overcoming the capabilities of the necessity of that intervention and in this case, the smugglers. Therefore, The Gambia immigration department must be equipped enough to be able to locate these smugglers at any given time, have the accessibility to apprehend them and the support to oversee swift prosecution and imprisonment of apprehended smugglers. The absence of these resources will only hinder success, stall progress and further compound the problems by involuntarily empowering the smugglers into luring more victims to such a very costly enterprise thus putting their lives at risk and their families in eternal misery.
5 – Expedite the prosecution and incarceration of smugglers when apprehended: This will be very helpful in sending a very strong message to all would-be smugglers about the consequences that lies ahead in the criminality that they are engaging caught. When wrongdoers are informed about the set out consequences for their actions, it often if not always discourages many thus reduces their engagements in the activity and most times puts an end to that practice. Hence the absence of expedited prosecution and incarceration of the smugglers also contributes to the continuity of this perilous journey and ill business.
Long-term solutions
1 – Change in policy and laws: The immigration policies and laws must be reviewed and changed to meet the current realities as in the challenges that the department is facing such as this ‘backway’ menace. These revisions of our immigration policies and laws must not only criminalise the smuggling of would be migrants but also declare the whole journey as a suicidal enterprise in which anyone apprehended, be it a smuggler or a would be migrant, will be subjected to very severe punishments including long jail terms. It is only through the respective enactment and implementation of such laws and policies that smugglers and would be migrants could be discouraged or risk paying the cost when apprehended. Such actions are more than necessary as the consequences of the journey are costly to the victims, their families and of course the society that always carries the greater burden of accommodating the consequences it brings in the long term.
2 – Meaningful pay increases: It is not surprising to know that many of the people now embarking in this perilous journey are not only the unemployed youths but folks holding functional jobs that unfortunately do not meet their daily socioeconomic needs. This thus pushes them into embarking in this journey with the illusion that an end to their plight can be only found in an already challenged Europe – both economically and socio-politically. These frustrated young people such as teachers, security service officers, health workers, and so forth can only be discouraged from this risky journey and made to stay home through a meaningful review of the salary scale – be it at the private or public sector with the objective of ensuring that their monthly take homes are in alignment with the daily socioeconomic realities. Because it is meaningless for one to be employed in what doesn’t give you means of addressing your daily needs as an individual and a family at large. That is why not only the unemployed are embarking in the journey but teachers, security officers and healthcare professionals as well. They will rather die at sea or reach the shores of Europe because peanuts will not keep them at home!
3 – Creation and decentralisation of skills training: The creation of more training programs as well as decentralisation of those avenues will help in discouraging many of these young folks that embark in this dangerous journey. Decentralisation in particular will help in bringing these programs to their doorsteps thereby creating avenues for skills learning and development in which doors can be opened with opportunities to better them socioeconomically. The training programs must also be meaningful and diverse to align to their taste for a skill such those in sports, music, and other forms of arts that many of youths are into today. Efforts must also be focused on increasing their enthusiasm for such trainings with incentives available to motivate them.
4 – Provision of loans and economic incentives: It will be interesting to know that there are many among these young folks embarking on this expensive yet perilous journey who are already skill-trained but are discouraged by the economic situation of the country due to the lack of avenues in which they could utilise their skills to better improve their socioeconomic status. And so these groups of youths can be targeted through the provision of loans and other forms of economic incentives that will help them, with the needed environment, use their skillset in improving their lives and those of their families thereby transforming them into meaningful constituents of the country. Empowerment of such youths could in the long run open avenues for more job creation, transfer of skills and of course an encouragement for more youths to stay in the country while pursuing doors for legal and dignified migration. The government must therefore look out for partnerships that will help in the provision of such incentives – incentives and loans that can help transform the Carpenters, the welder-men, the tailors, and so forth into successful entrepreneurs without leaving the shores of The Gambia.
5 – Creation of a National Coast Guard [NCG]: Changing times also require changes in how we govern our country and that ranges from the reviewing of our policies and programs to the creation of new policies and programs that align with the realities of the day most especially in confronting our challenges. Particularly challenges that are increasingly costing lives and livelihoods like this ‘backway’ menace that has consumed thousands of young lives and rendered thousands of families vulnerable and devastated. I am therefore of the view that we need a national Coast Guard branch of The Gambia Armed Forces (GAF) and responsible for the policing of our waters from Kartong to Koina. This when done, will not only create more jobs for the youths but also ensure that there is better servicing of our waters thus reducing if not stop illegal marine activities such as the smuggling of migrants. It will also reduce the burden on the already outstretched Navy as well as the immigration department like done by the Coast Guards around the globe. A well trained national coast guard will provide the professional and timely service that we need in combating not just the back way syndrome but all other forms of illegal use of our waters to ensure that there is marine security and of course safeguard the territorial integrity of our country at sea.
