The Price of Compliance: Asymmetric Diplomacy, Human Rights, and African State Complacency in Forced Migrant Returns

Forced migrant returns have become an increasingly contentious feature of contemporary migration governance. African governments face mounting pressure from destination countries, including members of the European Union (EU), the United States (US), Gulf States, and even fellow African countries, to facilitate the deportation and readmission of undocumented migrants and rejected asylum seekers. While African states have historically embraced refugee protection through Pan-African solidarity and humanitarian commitments, many now display growing tolerance toward coercive return practices. This complacency is reflected in passive acceptance, limited diplomatic resistance, bureaucratic cooperation, and participation in migration-control arrangements that expose migrants to insecurity, detention, exploitation, and human rights abuses.

This article argues that African government complacency should be understood not simply as a consequence of institutional weakness or administrative incapacity, but as a political response shaped by asymmetric diplomatic relations, economic dependence, security partnerships, and geopolitical constraints. Through an examination of migration externalization policies, deportation practices, and selected African case studies, the article demonstrates how governments often accept coercive return arrangements in exchange for development assistance, security cooperation, diplomatic support, and political legitimacy. While such arrangements may generate short-term political benefits for the regime in power, they frequently undermine migrant protection, weaken continental human rights commitments, and erode state legitimacy. The article concludes that sustainable migration governance requires a shift from transactional migration diplomacy toward a rights-based approach that places the protection of African citizens at the centre of migration policy.

Migration in Africa: Brief Historical Overview

Migration has long been a defining feature of African societies. Throughout history, Africans have moved across borders in response to trade opportunities, environmental pressures, conflict, political instability, educational aspirations, and economic necessity. Contemporary migration patterns continue to reflect these realities.

Historically, African states adopted relatively open refugee and migration policies inspired by principles of Pan-African solidarity, anti-colonial cooperation, and humanitarian responsibility. The 1969 Organization of African Unity Refugee Convention represented one of the most progressive regional refugee frameworks in the world. African governments frequently portrayed themselves as defenders of displaced populations and advocates of human dignity.

However, changing global migration dynamics^[1] have increasingly integrated African countries into migration-control frameworks designed by wealthier destination states. Destination countries—particularly members of the European Union, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf States—have sought to externalize migration management beyond their territorial borders. Rather than addressing migration primarily within their own jurisdictions, these states increasingly rely on transit and origin countries to prevent departures, intercept migrants, and facilitate deportations.

Within this context, African governments have become key actors in contemporary migration governance. They negotiate readmission agreements, participate in joint border-management initiatives, facilitate deportations, and cooperate in migration-control programmes funded by external actors, raising important questions regarding sovereignty, accountability, and human rights. 

This article argues that African government complacency toward forced migrant returns is not merely an expression of institutional weakness. Rather, it reflects a strategic response shaped by economic dependence, diplomatic calculations, regime-security concerns, and unequal power relations within the international system^[2]. By emphasizing the political economy of migration governance, the article challenges narratives that portray African governments solely as passive recipients of Western migration policies. Instead, it highlights the ways in which African states exercise agency within structurally unequal relationships, even when such choices undermine the rights and welfare of their citizens abroad.

Migration Governance and the Rise of Forced Returns

The increasing prominence of forced returns must be understood within broader transformations in global migration governance. Since the late 1990s, migration has become increasingly securitized. Governments in Europe, North America, and parts of the Middle East have framed migration not only as a humanitarian or economic issue but also as a matter of national security, border protection, and political stability. 

This securitization has encouraged the development of policies aimed at reducing irregular migration through stricter border controls, enhanced surveillance systems, detention facilities, readmission agreements, and deportation programmes. At the same time, political parties in many destination countries have increasingly mobilized anti-immigration sentiments for electoral purposes, creating domestic pressures for more restrictive migration policies.

Although sovereign states possess the legitimate right to regulate immigration and enforce immigration laws, concerns arise when deportation practices expose migrants to detention, violence, persecution, economic destitution, or violations of the principle of non-refoulement.^[3] Human rights organizations have repeatedly documented cases in which deported migrants have been returned to unsafe conditions without adequate legal safeguards.

The Nature of African Government Complacency

African government complacency refers to the tacit acceptance, facilitation, or insufficient contestation of practices that undermine migrant protection^[4]. It is manifested through delayed diplomatic responses, weak consular engagement, limited legal support for detained migrants, and cooperation with return arrangements that fail to meet international human rights standards.

Importantly, complacency should not be confused with complete passivity. In many instances, governments actively participate in migration-control arrangements because they perceive cooperation to be politically advantageous. Such cooperation may secure foreign aid, military assistance, development financing, debt relief support, or diplomatic goodwill from powerful international partners.

Consequently, complacency often represents a strategic calculation. Governments may determine that challenging deportation practices would jeopardize valuable political or economic relationships. While such decisions may appear rational from the perspective of state elites, they frequently impose substantial costs on migrants and their families.^[5]

Intra-Continental Manifestations of Complacency

Complacency is not uniquely directed toward Western powers; it is deeply embedded in intra-African geopolitics. Historical and contemporary precedents demonstrate a long-standing trend where regional migration management is weaponized for national political gains.

Mass expulsions like Nigeria's 1983 "Ghana Must Go" decree and Ghana's 1969 Aliens Compliance Order demonstrate how economic downturns prompt governments to abruptly deport fellow Africans, often met with muted, compromised diplomatic resistance from countries of origin struggling with domestic leverage.

The Libyan case remains one of the most striking examples of African government complacency. Following the Western-led collapse of the Gaddafi regime in 2011, Libya emerged as one of the principal transit hubs for migrants seeking to reach Europe. Numerous reports have documented detention, forced labour, extortion, human trafficking, and other abuses affecting migrants in Libya. Despite widespread evidence of these violations, many African governments have struggled to establish effective protection mechanisms for their citizens trapped in the country.^[6]

Similarly, Algeria’s repeated expulsions of migrants from West Africa’s Mali, Niger, and Guinea, have generated limited diplomatic opposition from countries of origin. Migrants have frequently been transported to remote desert regions near the Niger border and left under extremely difficult humanitarian conditions. Yet responses from affected governments have often remained muted.

Comparable patterns can be observed in South Africa today, where recurrent episodes of xenophobic violence have targeted African migrants from neighbouring countries. Although governments have occasionally issued formal statements of concern, sustained diplomatic pressure has generally been limited.

The deportation of Cameroonian asylum seekers from Nigeria in 2018^[7] provides another example. Despite international criticism and concerns regarding refugee protection obligations, security cooperation between the two countries appeared to take precedence over the protection of vulnerable asylum seekers. Similar dynamics have emerged in relation to the repeated expulsion of Cameroonian nationals from Equatorial Guinea.^[8]

These examples reveal a broader pattern in which political, economic, and security interests frequently outweigh commitments to migrant protection.

Externalization and Transactional Migration Diplomacy

The growing phenomenon of African government complacency cannot be understood without examining the broader process of migration externalization. Migration externalization refers to the transfer of migration-control responsibilities from destination countries to transit and origin countries. Through this approach, wealthier states seek to prevent migrants from reaching their territories by shifting border enforcement beyond their own borders.

The European Union has become one of the principal architects of migration externalization in Africa. Following the increase in Mediterranean migration flows during the mid-2010s, European governments intensified efforts to engage African countries in migration-control initiatives.^[9] The 2015 Valletta Summit on Migration and the establishment of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa represented major milestones in this process. These initiatives provided financial assistance, development funding, technical support, and security cooperation to African governments in exchange for commitments to strengthen border management, combat irregular migration, and facilitate migrant returns.^[10]

While presented as partnerships for migration management, these arrangements often reflected highly unequal power relations. European states possessed substantial financial resources and diplomatic leverage, whereas many African governments faced economic vulnerabilities, debt burdens, security challenges, and development needs. Consequently, migration cooperation frequently emerged within contexts characterized by significant asymmetries in bargaining power.

The Khartoum Process further illustrates this dynamic. Established to address migration routes linking the Horn of Africa to Europe, the initiative promoted cooperation between European and African governments on migration control and border security. Critics have argued that aspects of this cooperation contributed to the empowerment of security actors whose human rights records were deeply problematic. In Sudan, this funding mechanism directly empowered and legitimized armed factions, such as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), transforming domestic security forces into externalized border guards and exacerbating the country’s internal tensions.

Libya provides perhaps the clearest example of migration externalization in practice. Following the destruction of state institutions after 2011, the country became a critical transit point for migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean. European migration strategies increasingly relied on Libyan authorities and affiliated actors to intercept migrants before they reached European shores^[11]. As a result, thousands of migrants were returned to detention centres where international organizations documented serious human rights abuses. Yet despite extensive evidence of these conditions, international migration-control dependence on Libya continued.

Migration externalization has also extended beyond Europe. Gulf States have implemented large-scale deportation programmes affecting African migrants, particularly workers employed in low-wage sectors. Saudi Arabia's deportation campaigns targeting Ethiopian and Nigerian migrants illustrate how destination countries may prioritize immigration enforcement while governments of origin often struggle to secure adequate protections for their citizens. In many cases, responses from affected governments have been limited to evacuation operations and temporary humanitarian assistance, with relatively little sustained diplomatic pressure concerning the treatment of deportees.

These examples demonstrate that migration governance increasingly operates through transactional arrangements in which migration control becomes intertwined with aid, security cooperation, trade relations, and diplomatic partnerships. Within such contexts, complacency frequently emerges as a politically convenient strategy for governments seeking to preserve broader bilateral relationships or self-serving interests.

Drivers of African Government Complacency

Several interconnected factors help explain why African governments often cooperate with forced-return regimes despite their potentially harmful consequences.

Structured Economic Dependence 

Economic dependence remains one of the most significant drivers of complacency. Many African economies have been structured to depend on foreign aid, concessional financing, preferential trade agreements, and development assistance provided by wealthier states and international institutions.^[12] This dependence can constrain governments' willingness to challenge migration demands advanced by powerful partners.

Migration cooperation is frequently incorporated into broader diplomatic relationships. Financial assistance may be linked directly or indirectly to commitments regarding border management, migrant readmission, or migration-control cooperation. Governments facing fiscal pressures, debt obligations, or development challenges may therefore perceive resistance to migration demands as economically costly.

The political economy of migration governance thus creates incentives for compliance. Even when leaders recognize the human costs associated with deportations and forced returns, they may conclude that maintaining access to financial resources outweighs the benefits of diplomatic confrontation.

Security Cooperation and Regime Stability

Security considerations represent another important driver. Many African governments maintain close security partnerships with external actors in areas such as counterterrorism, border security, intelligence sharing, and military assistance. Migration cooperation is often integrated into these broader security relationships.

Political elites may view migration cooperation as a means of strengthening strategic alliances that contribute to regime stability. Governments confronting internal security threats, separatist movements, insurgencies, or organized political movements frequently depend upon external support. In such circumstances, challenging migration-control arrangements may appear inconsistent with broader security objectives.

The deportation of Cameroonian asylum seekers from Nigeria illustrates how security cooperation can take precedence over refugee protection concerns. Similarly, migration enforcement initiatives in the Sahel have often become intertwined with counterterrorism and regional security agendas.

Institutional and Consular Weaknesses

Institutional limitations also contribute to complacency. Effective migrant protection requires functioning consular services, legal expertise, diplomatic engagement, and financial resources. Many governments lack the institutional capacity necessary to provide comprehensive assistance to citizens detained or deported abroad.

Embassies frequently operate with limited budgets and personnel. Consular officials may struggle to monitor detention centres, provide legal representation, or intervene effectively in deportation proceedings. These institutional constraints reduce governments' ability to respond proactively to migrant protection challenges.

However, institutional weakness alone cannot fully explain complacency. Some governments possess sufficient capacity to provide stronger protection but nevertheless choose not to prioritize migrant welfare when doing so conflicts with material benefits and political objectives.

Weak Regional Accountability Mechanisms

Regional organizations including the African Union (AU), ECOWAS, ECCAS, CEMAC, and IGAD have adopted migration frameworks emphasizing free movement, refugee protection, and human rights. Yet implementation remains uneven^[13].

Although these organizations possess important normative frameworks, they generally lack robust enforcement mechanisms capable of sanctioning member states that violate migrant rights. Consequently, governments often face limited regional consequences for cooperating with problematic deportation practices.

This institutional gap contributes to an environment in which complacency can persist with relatively little accountability. While regional organizations frequently issue declarations and policy frameworks, translating these commitments into effective protection mechanisms remains a significant challenge.^[14]

Consequences of African Government Complacency

The consequences of government complacency extend far beyond the immediate act of deportation. They affect individual migrants, families, communities, and the broader legitimacy of African states. While migration-control cooperation is supposedly meant to generate short-term diplomatic and economic benefits, the social and human costs borne by migrants themselves are the most tangible.

Human Rights Violations

Perhaps the most visible consequence of complacency is the normalization of human rights violations against migrants. Individuals intercepted and returned through externalized migration systems frequently experience arbitrary detention, physical abuse, extortion, forced labour, and sexual violence. Women and children remain particularly vulnerable to trafficking networks and exploitative labour arrangements.

The situation in Libya illustrates these dangers. Numerous investigations by international organizations have documented overcrowded detention facilities, torture, forced labour, and human trafficking affecting migrants intercepted at sea and returned to Libya.^[15] Despite extensive evidence of abuse, migration-control arrangements involving Libyan authorities have continued to receive international support.

Similarly, deported migrants from Gulf States have reported detention under degrading conditions, confiscation of personal documents, unpaid wages, and inadequate access to legal representation. In many cases, deportations occur with little regard for migrants' economic circumstances or family obligations.

These realities reveal how migration governance increasingly prioritizes deterrence over protection. When governments cooperate with such practices without demanding accountability, they contribute to the normalization of human rights violations against their own citizens.

Socio-Economic Destabilization

Forced returns also generate profound socio-economic consequences. Migration often represents a significant household investment. Families frequently sell livestock, land, businesses, or other productive assets to finance migration journeys. Others borrow money through formal or informal credit arrangements.

When migrants are deported, these investments are frequently lost. Returnees often arrive home without savings, employment opportunities, or access to reintegration support. Instead of becoming providers for their families, they return burdened by debt and social expectations they cannot meet.

The consequences extend beyond individual migrants. Remittances constitute an important source of household income across many African countries. The sudden loss of remittance flows can undermine food security, educational opportunities, healthcare access, and local economic activity.

Communities that depend heavily on migration may therefore experience broader economic disruptions when deportations occur on a large scale. Rather than addressing the structural causes of migration, forced returns frequently deepen the socio-economic conditions that initially motivated migration.

Social Stigmatization and Psychological Trauma

The social consequences of deportation are often underestimated. In many communities, migration is associated with aspirations for economic success and social mobility. Deportation may therefore be interpreted as personal failure.

Returnees frequently face stigmatization, humiliation, and exclusion from social networks. Some experience depression, anxiety, and psychological trauma resulting from violence encountered during migration journeys or detention experiences abroad.

For migrants who have endured abuse in transit countries or detention centres, reintegration can be particularly difficult. The absence of comprehensive psychosocial support further compounds these challenges.

As a result, deportation often produces not only economic hardship but also long-term emotional and psychological consequences that remain insufficiently addressed by existing migration policies.

The Re-Migration Cycle

One of the most significant consequences of ineffective return policies is the emergence of re-migration cycles. Existing reintegration programmes often fail to provide sustainable solutions for returned migrants. Many initiatives remain heavily dependent on donor funding and focus on short-term assistance rather than long-term economic integration.

Vocational training programmes, small business grants, and temporary financial support may offer some benefits. However, these interventions frequently prove inadequate when underlying structural conditions such as unemployment, poverty, political instability, and limited economic opportunities remain unchanged.

Research among returnees in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan shows that many continue to view migration as their only viable economic option despite previous deportations. Consequently, deportation becomes a temporary interruption rather than a permanent end to migration aspirations. This dynamic contributes to repeated migration attempts and continued exposure to risk.

The persistence of re-migration highlights a fundamental contradiction within contemporary migration governance. Policies designed to reduce migration often fail to address the very factors that drive migration in the first place.

Policy Implications and Critical Reflections

While policy recommendations for stronger institutions, enhanced consular services, and expanded reintegration programmes are legitimate steps towards a lasting solution to forced migrant returns, they must be grounded in the political and economic realities of the African countries concerned. 

Many states operate under severe budgetary pressures. Rising debt-servicing obligations, structural adjustment reforms, IMF-supported fiscal consolidation programmes, and competing domestic priorities often limit available resources. Under such conditions, significant investments in migrant protection may appear politically difficult.

Nevertheless, recognizing these constraints does not eliminate state responsibility. Instead, it highlights the need for realistic and context-sensitive approaches. First, governments should strengthen existing consular protection mechanisms by prioritizing strategic interventions in countries where large migrant populations face elevated risks. Even modest investments in legal assistance, migrant registration systems, and emergency response mechanisms can improve protection outcomes. Second, regional organizations should focus on strengthening accountability mechanisms rather than merely producing normative frameworks. The effectiveness of migration governance depends not only on policy adoption but also on implementation and enforcement. Third, African governments should pursue greater coordination when negotiating migration agreements with external actors. Collective bargaining may enhance negotiating leverage and reduce the asymmetries that currently characterize migration diplomacy. Finally, migration governance must move beyond deterrence-focused approaches. Policies that fail to address unemployment, governance challenges, insecurity, environmental pressures, and demographic change are unlikely to achieve sustainable outcomes.

Conclusion

African government complacency in forced migrant returns is best understood as a political response shaped by economic dependence, institutional limitations, security partnerships, and asymmetric diplomatic relations^[16]. While governments are often portrayed as passive recipients of migration-control policies designed elsewhere, the evidence suggests a more complex reality.

Many African governments actively participate in migration-control arrangements because they expect tangible benefits from cooperation. Any immediate gain associated with migration cooperation, however, often comes at the expense of citizen welfare and state credibility.^[17]

The challenge confronting African governments is therefore not whether migration should be governed, but how it should be governed. A migration regime centred primarily on deterrence, deportation, and externalized border control is unlikely to provide sustainable solutions. Effective migration governance requires a rights-based approach that recognizes migrants not as security threats but as citizens entitled to dignity, protection, and legal safeguards.

As destination countries continue to expand externalized migration-control strategies, African governments face a critical choice. They can continue to prioritize transactional migration diplomacy, or they can pursue a more assertive approach that places the protection of humans at the centre of migration governance. The future of migration policy in Africa may ultimately depend on which of these paths governments choose to follow.

Dr. Emmanuel Agbor Oben is a lecturer in Educational Leadership, Public Administration, and Governance at the Faculty of Education, University of Yaoundé I, the Advanced Institute of Public Management (ISMP) Yaoundé and at the National School of Local Administration (NASLA) Buea. He serves as chief of Cabinet for a Special Duties portfolio Minister in the Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon. His research focuses on Educational Leadership and Policy, Teacher Effectiveness, Digital Pedagogy, Governance, and Public Sector Management. He has published widely on education and digital transformation in Cameroon.

Endnotes