Overview of a phenomenon

The physiognomy of illegal migration in Morocco no longer corresponds to the conventional image which was known since the early 90s in which nationals would undertake isolated attempts. Today, illegal migrants trafficking is orchestrated by well organized networks that are structured around imbricate chains that feed hardly controllable trans-border criminality.

Today, illegal migrants from Sub-Saharan countries represent the major component of this phenomenon which has proved to have international ramifications. Clandestine emigration by nationals has for its part somewhat stagnated in the last years and even declined since 2002, as a result of security and dissuasive measures taken by the Moroccan authorities and the action undertaken to promote popular awareness on the hazards of illegal migration.

Trafficking networks are organized into bagmen, hosts and transporters who often operate illegal workshops to manufacture pateras (small boats). Generally, illegal migrants use “pateras” or international transport trucks, both through the strait or toward the Canary Isles. Other Moroccan illegal migrants attempt to reach Italy via the Island of Lampedusa.

The flow of clandestine migrants is a serious problem with multiple consequences, since Morocco is no longer a transit platform but a destination too.

A deep understanding of all the aspects of this phenomenon has enabled the security services to further rationalize their working, intervention and investigation methods and the Moroccan authorities to set forth a comprehensive and integrated control strategy.

A multi-form strategy

The strategy adopted by the Moroccan authorities in the fight against illegal migration is part of a comprehensive approach that blends legal, institutional, security, socio-economic and communication aspects.

On the legislative scale, the law N° 02-03 related to the entry and stay of foreigners in Morocco, illegal emigration and immigration entered into force in November 2003. The goal was to unify previous texts, harmonize new provisions with the penal code, rationalize the stay of foreigners in Morocco and, most importantly, codify illegal migration-related offenses. Migrants trafficking was criminalized and its sponsors are, henceforth, liable to prison terms ranging between 10 years and life imprisonment. The law also protects the rights of foreigners, by overtly recognizing appeal means.

At the institutional level, two outstanding measures came to reinforce the existing arsenal with the creation of the Department of migration and borders control at the Ministry of the Interior and the Migration observatory.

The Department of migration and borders control, an ad-hoc structure with clearly defined competence and field of action will rationalize working methods, refine analysis tools and optimize the deployment of surveillance operation units. It will also allow for control infiltration points used by illegal migrants along the borders.

The inception of this structure is a means to have an efficient intervention force with the response capacity, celerity and coherence needed to keep permanently abreast with the increasingly sophisticated and evolving strategies developed by migrants trafficking networks.
The mission assigned to this Department is two-fold. Analysis of the migrants trafficking networks at the national and international scales and operation support for borders surveillance.
The role of the observatory consists in federating all concerned parties in the multi-disciplinary thought on the migration issue, and mainly the civil society and researchers. It also acts as a statistics data bank at the national scale.

Security dimension

A particular vigilance characterizes the constant action of the local authorities and the security services as well as the Royal armed Forces. For this reason, the air patrols, the terrestrial combing operations as well as the actions of intelligence allow to curb attempts of the clandestine departures upstream.

This multidimensional approach made it possible to reduce the number of illegal immigration attempts. Thus, from January 1 to October 31, 2003, the number of national and foreign candidates to illegal immigration fell from 26,95 % to 17,53. In parallel, there has been an increase of 33,75 % of networks dismantled during the same period.

International cooperation

International cooperation is, of course, one of the pillars of this fight against clandestine immigration. Morocco bases its efforts on the principle of the responsibility shared with its partners. The cooperation initiated with Spain, the European Union and Nigeria represents a model of North-South partnership and South-South.

With Spain, for instance, the joint Permanent Migratory Group, set up in November 2003, already held four meetings, the latest one on September 15, 2004 in Cordoba and made it possible to achieve notable progress. Thus, the joint sea patrols between the Royal Gendarmerie and the Guardia Civil between Laâyoune and Las Palmas started in February 2004. Air and terrestrial joint patrols were also carried out and allowed Spanish to better perceive the efforts provided by the Moroccan authorities. This experiment was extended to the zone of the Strait and the first joint patrol was carried out early November 2004. Morocco has also dispatched four liaison officers to Madrid, the Canary Islands, Algeziras and to the S.I.V.E system (electronic system set up by Spain to monitor the Gibraltar Strait).

In addition, five operations were carried out with the Nigerians authorities and allowed to repatriate by air some 1.700 nationals Nigerians in illegal situation in Morocco. These repatriations, based on voluntary return, took place in the respect of Human Rights and dignity of the people.

Socio-economic dimension

The socio-economic dimension is not neglected and Morocco calls upon its partners not to focus on the security aspect and to privilege the economic treatment of the migratory problems through co-development, generator of growth and jobs to keep at home the potential candidates.

The Moroccan-European Association Agreement set up a Task force on the Social and Migration Affairs, with one of its objectives to help create micro-projects in the zones with strong migratory potential.

Awareness and Media campaigns are also taken into account and the initiated strategy aims to sensitise potential candidates, through the media (televised reports, newspapers, round tables, films, documentary, etc), to the dangers of the clandestine migration and the inherent risks of their exploitation by the networks of human traffickers and to inform them on opportunities provided by legal migration as an alternative.