For many, Scandinavia is the poster child for happy citizens and generous welfare programs. In fact, the UN’s World Happiness Report has consistently ranked Scandinavian countries at the top of their list. In recent times, however, there has been much debate about the beneficiaries of these programs. The rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric calls for placing the onus on immigrants to prove their candidacy for such benefits marginalizing them and leading to a very select group of “happy citizens.”
Take Denmark as an example: a country which has historically been governed by restrictive immigration policies relative to other countries in Western Europe, and recently took an even harsher turn thanks to the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party (DPP), which has relentlessly pushed mainstream parties into adopting ever stricter policies towards immigrants, particularly Muslims. The Centre-left Social Democrats (SD) were the leaders in the recent elections on June 5th wining 27% of the seats, but we shouldn’t expect this result to bring much change when it comes to dealing with foreigners.
In the contest for Denmark’s increasingly influential anti-immigrant vote, the SD is promising more limits on foreigners. The influence of right-wing parties such as the DPP has normalised xenophobic and Islamophobic sentiments. Last year the government drafted a plan to exile asylum-seekers to an isolated island, which was once used as a research centre for contagious diseases in animals. Parliament has outlawed the burqa. It allows officials to confiscate money and other valuables from asylum-seekers, apparently to pay for the cost of their living in asylum centres. A recently approved shiftin asylum policy will focus on repatriation instead of integration, which means the government can deport refugees whose countries it considers safe enough, such as Somalia (even though the country is plagued with conflict and ridden with drought). More recently, the government announced a plan to remove “ghettos” by 2030: neighbourhoods with lower income and education levels, and higher unemployment and crime rates, than the national average, and over 50% “non-Western” residents. Policies within the plan demand that children in these ghettos must attend extra schooling in “Danish values”, or risk losing welfare benefits.
Average life expectancy in Pakistan in 2017 was 68 years. The same was true of Denmark in 1945 and of Saudi Arabia in 1973. If Pakistan really wants its citizens to be “happy”, then it ultimately needs to provide opportunities to those who remain
A few years ago, Denmark’s policies could be considered as an anomaly compared to other Nordic countries such as Sweden and Finland. However, the narrative seems to be converging. In the 2018 Swedish elections, the far-right Sweden Democrats received an all-time high of 17.6% percent of the votes. Like Denmark, rhetoric on immigration policy is becoming Islamophobic and policy outcomes are decreasingly multicultural. This can be evidenced by the 16 % rise in xenophobic hate crimes from 2012 – 2106 in Sweden according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention; Islamophobic crimes increased 43percent over that same period.
As immigration policy sways to the right in the Nordic, outcomes and policies do not fare much better in the Middle East – the most popular destination region for Pakistani immigrants. Take Saudi Arabia as an example where policy outcomes are much darker for Pakistani immigrants. In 2018, Saudi Arabia hosted the largest highest number of Pakistani workers (26% of all registered Pakistani workers abroad) and the highest number of nationals executed on death row in Saudi Arabia were also from Pakistan. The capricious Saudi government, in complete ignorance of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, rarely informs foreign embassies when a citizen is on death row to the complete heartache of affected family members. Slowdown in the Saudi economy and fluctuations in oil prices has also led to en masse deportations of Pakistani workers without much protection for worker rights.
Considering these policy changes abroad, what policy actions can the Pakistani government take to best protect its citizens abroad? For starters, better accountability of existing stakeholders such as “community welfare attachés” who are responsible for monitoring the well-being of Pakistanis in the destination country could limit some flagrant violations of worker rights. Country wide information campaigns that educate to-be migrants on their rights, avenues for legal redress, and the legal code of the destination country could reduce the number of Pakistanis who fall prey to human and drug smugglers. Overseas Employment Promoters (OEPs) – licensed authorities that recruit Pakistani citizens for employment abroad – should work in conjunction with the Pakistani government to develop relationships with employers who deploy pro-immigrant policies and ban employers with a track record of any violations. The Pakistani government should work in collaboration with OEPs to subsidise the cost of finding employment overseas for low-income Pakistani migrants; this will reduce the incidence of irregular migration / smuggling and allow the authorities to track Pakistanis overseas.
Ultimately, immigration flows to and from Pakistan are inevitable. Policies mentioned above, or some variation of them, will be crucial in protecting fellow citizens abroad. However, one of the major causes of immigration, for Pakistanis and other immigrants worldwide, remains the lack of viable alternatives domestically. Average life expectancy in Pakistan in 2017 was 68 years. The same was true of Denmark in 1945 and of Saudi Arabia in 1973. If Pakistan really wants its citizens to be “happy”, then it ultimately needs to provide opportunities to those who remain…
The author is a Princeton University alumnus and works as a strategy consultant in London