Swiss anti-migration campaign becomes a Tv Series for African spectators

Switzerland has launched a campaign to discourage Nigerian immigration based on drama. Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) is spending $450,000 on filming a TV series with African actors showing the perils of living in Europe illegally, which will be shown on Nigerian television.
Speaking to reporters, the spokesman for SEM, Lukas Rieder, said that one of the objectives of the series was to make clear that there are few chances of being granted asylum and the trip does not worth the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean.“Human traffickers tell potential migrants that Switzerland is paradise, it's El Dorado. But that's not true. We want to provide objective information about the dangers of passage, and the dangers of living in Switzerland without a permit, for example.”

It is not the first time that the SEM has embarked on a such a project. In 2007, it funded a two-minute advert shown in several African countries such as Cameroon and Nigeria. The message? “Don’t believe everything you are told.”

Directed by the Nigerian Charles Okafor, the 13-episodes series will be aired in the most populous country in Africa with the objective of deterring immigration. The film features the hard life of an illegal immigrant, who applies for asylum only to be rejected.

“Television globally is a very powerful medium, because it has the capacity to reach a vast mass – a critical mass of people… even hundreds of millions of viewers,” said Okafor.

But experts have questioned how true-to-life and persuasive a drama with such a didactic and political purpose can be.

On the one hand, asylum is genuinely hard to obtain in Switzerland. Last year over 27,000 people applied, with less than 1,300 cases processed. A total of 4.1% of all applicants were Nigerians. Only three people were granted asylum and six others received temporary admissions.

Besides official state-sponsored productions, there are also various attempts to project a more complex African-Swiss experience.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International says that Switzerland, which signed a migration regulation agreement with Nigeria in 2011, should strive to reduce the incentive for asylum seekers to come, as opposed to dealing with them once they cross its borders. “Switzerland should work to improve the human rights situation and the allocation of resources in Nigeria. They are fundamental aspects if we want people to have the opportunity to stay in their own country,” the NGO’s Denise Graf told Swissinfo.