Many people move from their home countries to more developed countries in search for quality life. However, the World Migration report released on Wednesday in the City of Kigali by the International Organisation for Migration Rwanda (IOM), shows that migrants still struggle to achieve satisfactory levels of wellbeing. IOM focuses on the wellbeing of migrants around the world. The survey shows that migrants in the South to North pathway remit more than their counterparts on the other three pathways. Migrants in the South to South pathways report the poorest levels of wellbeing and have fairly the same gains or worse than when they were in their native countries. The report further shows that migration from South to North has increased in the past two decades to 40 per cent though it still represents less than half of the international migrants. South to South migration is at 33 per cent, North to North 22 per cent with North to South registers the least, at 5 per cent. Presenting the findings, Catherine Northing, the chief of mission IOM Rwanda, said over 25,000 migrants from 150 countries took part in the survey. Northing said the report was exploring both the negatives and positives in the well being of the migrants and how migration affects their quality of life and development. The number of international migrants worldwide reached 232 million this year. Rwanda hosts about 452,406 immigrants, about 3.8 per cent of the national population of migrants. Damascene Rusanganwa, the director in charge of nationality at the Directorate of Immigration and Emigration, said the East African region is experiencing the issue of South to South migration of workers which he said is facilitated in Rwanda and that it is key to development. “This is the second year of the implementation of the, migration law enacted in March 2011 which has provided Rwanda with tremendous access to migrant workers in areas of investment, education, etc” Rusanganwa said. He further noted that the use of identity cards as travel documents under a tripartite arrangement between Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda and a single East African tourist visa, to be effected in January, would increase movement of people across borders. “We encourage free movement of citizens of the three countries, and this will also enable tourists to visit the three countries without being subjected to different immigration procedures. This will boost the economy and create more jobs, especially in the tourism industry,” he explained.
