The news agency Reuters reports about attempts "to dissuade migrants from Cameroon and Nigeria with a bleak new television advert that depicts the life of freshly-arrived migrants in Europe as one fraught with problems and dangers." The hard-hitting advert is part of a campaign by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Migration and the European Commission.
Earlier this autumn The Guradian has reported about a similar campaign by the Spanish government, again carried out by the Geneva based IOM: "The Spanish government has added emotional television adverts to its arsenal of measures to combat illegal immigration from Africa. Starting on Wednesday in Senegal, a €1m (£698,000) media campaign will aim to discourage locals seeking a better life in Europe from attempting the dangerous 12-day ocean voyage to the Canary Islands."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,2172858,00.html
In May IOM has collaborated with the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi to produce so called "hard hitting counter-trafficking ads" broadcasted in South-African Tv as well as CNN and BBC world:
http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pbnAF/cache/offonce?entryId=14192&titleHo...
On November 27 Reuters reports:
"Jean-Philipppe Chauzy, a spokesman for Geneva-based IOM, said the advert was designed to dissuade potential migrants from making the often deadly trip to Europe via the inhospitable north African deserts or by sea in dangerously overloaded boats.
"We work with the governments of Nigeria, Cameroon and Switzerland to inform would-be migrants of the dangers of using smuggling networks and the realities of life as an undocumented migrant in Europe," he said.
The advert, which has already been shown in Nigeria, shows a father sitting in a comfortable-looking living room in Africa talking on the telephone to his son, who is standing in a storm-lashed pay-phone box somewhere in Europe.
As he reassures his father that life in Europe is okay, pictures flash on the screen showing him begging, sleeping rough and fleeing police officers.
Switzerland has contributed $150,000 to the campaign, which also included flyers and other forms of advertising, while the European Commission has given $5,000, Chauzy said.
Right-wing Swiss politician Christoph Blocher, whose portfolio as justice minister includes immigration, told the Swiss SonntagsBlick newspaper he supported the adverts. "There is hardly anybody who has not seen pictures showing overcrowded vessels and people jettisoned into the sea by ruthless migrant smugglers," the Swiss Federal Office for Migration said in a statement on Wednesday. "Pictures of ships capsized, of people brought out of the water dead."
"Those people often cherish expectations of a properous future abroad, expectations doomed to disappointment because the everyday life of illegal immgrants inevitably falls short of their hopes," the office added.
The advert (available here: http://www.blick.ch/news/ausland/so-schrecken-wir-die-afrikaner-ab-76915) was first broadcast on Nigeria television during a football match, the SonntagsBlick said.
Franco Frattini, the European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, said on Wednesday that the European Commission supported efforts to inform African migrants about the dangers of their trip.
"Just one point I believe is quite far from the reality. The father of this young man sitting in a chair, very quiet, with a fantastic and modern telephone ... Their fathers live in very poor condition, not in a very modern apartment," he said.
"For the rest, it's true that young people that run the risk of crossing illegally the Mediterranean, they arrive here in Brussels or in Spain or in Italy, with the rain, where they have to escape from police, sometimes they are caught, so this is reality," he added."
(Reporting by Tom Armitage and Reuters television; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
