[1]In Tunisia, the issue of the reception of irregular sub-Saharan migrant populations [2] is a relatively recent one. Up until 2011, migration of this kind was managed within a national framework – primarily repressive and security-oriented – under the supervision of the Tunisian interior ministry. The events of the Arab Spring provoked a structural change: policy shifted from a purely security-oriented approach to one that incorporated humanitarian and more managerial aspects [3] (Cassarini 2020). More specifically, the "migration crisis" has resulted in an increase in European and international funding around migration management (Pécoud 2010; Bartels 2018), to nongovernmental organizations. [4] This new wave of funding is contributing to the emergence and structuring of a real "professional" sector of migrant assistance, accompanied by the arrival of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), foremost among them the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The resulting policies of mobility control can thus be understood in terms of these rationales of professionalization and technicalization of humanitarian work (Bassi 2018).
This article aims to demonstrate how, thanks to the international institutions’ focus on a supposed "migration crisis", assistance to migrants is becoming professionalized by conveying discourses and practices of migration control. First, we will describe how this professional sector was formed. We will then show the ambiguity of the positioning of these actors in the face of the implementation of assisted voluntary return (AVR) programs.
This work is based on a field survey conducted from January 2016 to May 2019 between the cities of Sfax, the main place of investigation, Medenine and Tunis. In all, 74 semistructured interviews were conducted, 42 with sub-Saharan individuals in the process of migration and 32 with workers and officials of associations, nongovernmental and intergovernmental humanitarian organizations, members of the clergy, and Tunisian officials in charge of migration issues. [5]
The emergence of the assistance sector and the professionalization of human-rights activists
Until 2011, the activist space in Tunisia is relatively restricted and confined to semi-clandestine forms. The liberation of speech caused by the revolution has resulted in the emergence of a very dense network of associations, composed of volunteer activists with degrees and whose professional integration is difficult. At the same time, the significant influx of European funding [6] in the field of support for "civil society" allows for the creation of many fixed and paid positions, and thus professional careers (Allal and Geisser 2018).
Some activists invest in these spaces in the hope of making them a permanent activity, a way for them to build real "humanitarian careers" (Dauvin and Siméant 2002), much better paid and more rewarding than a classic salaried job. [7] Abdallah’s trajectory is representative of these post-revolutionary bifurcations. The 2011 revolution gave him the opportunity to become involved in local activism and to "defend democracy" [8] in the city of Sfax against what he describes as "conservative political forces". [9] This strong commitment allows him to position himself in the Tunisian militant field. He applied for and benefited from several cycles of "training in good practices" provided by European donors to civil society activists. Between 2011 and 2015, Abdallah navigates between four local associations. [10] Thanks to the training he received, he embarked on a career as a consultant for the associative world. Thus, he began to give training in drafting projects for European donors. In 2015, he feels the need to stabilize and acquire a more rewarding status, especially within an international organization:
At first I was interested in German institutions… Like the FES. [11] I had been part of a training project they were giving to civil society activists. But it didn’t work out too well. On my side I continued the trainings to the associations and then one day I see this call for applications for this organization. [12] So I said to myself, migration… I had never worked on that. So I asked around and I came across articles about racism, the exploitation of sub-Saharans in the south, the departures at sea… I applied, I did the interview and I was accepted. My job was to make migration a subject of local debate and to include it in the agenda of all civil society organizations. [13]
Abdallah’s recruitment to a French NGO is not so much explained by his activism or his "expertise" on migration issues as by his position within the local activist field, as well as by his skills, which allow him to meet the requirements of international donors in terms of calls for projects. This relative ignorance of migration issues is also a common trait of post-2011 civil society activists, who are much more aware of issues of freedom of expression, politics or religion.
While the trajectories of workers in the field of migrant assistance are of course not reducible to that of Abdallah, the latter is nonetheless representative of certain social traits that are regularly observed. In addition to his previous activist experience, Abdallah is from the upper middle classes. He has completed a course of higher education with university or associative experience abroad, during which he was able to acquire the skills of a mediator between the knowledge and techniques of international humanitarianism and the local associative and militant environment in which he had evolved until then. The reconversion of these skills and experiences in the assistance to migrants takes place in particular thanks to the allocation of important funds on this theme from 2015, which opens new professional opportunities.
Assist or help to return: the ambivalence of humanitarian work under the banner of professionalization
The progressive constitution of the professional sector of assistance to migrants is thus built through the meeting of two groups of actors located at two different scales. A first local scale, composed of activists looking for professional opportunities in the international humanitarian sector, and a second, international scale, composed of NGOs and IGOs looking for activists with local knowledge that they do not have. Among these organizations, the IOM is undoubtedly the one whose implantation strategies are the most obvious.
Tunisia joined the IOM in 1999 and its first office in the Maghreb opened in Tunis in March 2001. However, it is from 2011 and following the arrival of new European funds that its action is growing. Assisted voluntary return (AVR) programs are the main instrument of the IOM. The history of this instrument of population displacement is controversial. [14] Initially implemented by northern states, it was then deployed by the IOM in southern states, including Tunisia, since 2011. Since 2015, its implementation can be observed in a concrete way in the animation of the "referral system of assistance devices". This system associates all organizations that have opened their activities to migrant populations and allows each to list the various "offers" of the network and propose them to potential beneficiaries. As such, the IOM claims in 2021 a network comprising 28 "public institutions" and 46 "civil-society organizations" and is a key player for all organizations wishing to get involved in assisting migrants in Tunisia. The latter are therefore led to place the VRA at the heart of their "humanitarian" action.
While most migrants go to the offices of Médecins du Monde in Sfax, Tunis and Medenine to have their health costs covered or for medical follow-up, AVR is also one of the options presented during consultations, with leaflets displayed in the waiting room. Sofia, a humanitarian worker in an NGO providing medical assistance to migrants, offers, among other services, a referral to IOM services and AVR. When asked about the compatibility of her humanitarian commitment with this system, she justifies the need for it, while being clear about its purpose:
Voluntary return is clearly a political strategy, a state strategy… a way for them to manage migration […]. It is the device to which migrant populations turn when there are no other solutions, so it is clear that it is a sign of failure of integration in the country… [15]
This tension is symptomatic of the commitment of humanitarian workers mobilized on migration issues in Tunisia. Overwhelmed, often confronted with difficult situations and lacking recurrent funding, the IOM appears in the associative and humanitarian world as a solid actor offering, if nothing else, a solution to which migrants can be redirected. In addition, its status as a UN agency has contributed to the lack of criticism from Tunisian civil society, which has been used to receiving strong support from these agencies since 2011, in the context of the democratic transition. In this way, NGOs such as Terre d’asile and Médecins du Monde, as well as a group of more locally based associations, have been involved in the dissemination and promotion of a system as controversial as AVR (Andrijasevic and Walters 2011; Dini and Giusa 2020), particularly in Tunisia, without being the project leaders.
At the local level, IOM has ultimately managed to blur the boundaries with other organizations. By focusing on communication and partnership with civil society and humanitarian organizations, it has succeeded in "making people forget" its status as an intergovernmental organization. The vast majority of the irregular workers we met speak of the IOM as an NGO or an international association for the defense of their rights.
AVR is therefore a means of managing populations in an irregular situation, for which the question of the consent of the main parties concerned is very important. Several migrants we met and interviewed in Medenine, near the Libyan border, reported that they were under a lot of pressure to opt for AVR (condition of access to emergency accommodation, prohibition to leave the municipality of Medenine, where jobs are scarce and poorly paid, etc.). It is because of this situation in particular that Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) withdrew in December 2017, refusing to endorse IOM’s policy on AVR through their presence.
In Tunisia, the “migration crisis” succeeded the “democratic crisis” on the agendas of international organizations. In a context of relative post-revolutionary disenchantment, IGOs and NGOs were able to seize this opportunity by positioning themselves as legitimate actors in the pursuit of militant work. By attracting the most qualified activists who benefit from the most privileged social positions, they have succeeded in professionalizing them (using techniques from international humanitarianism) and in building a professional sector where the international imperatives of migration management are adapted to the local context.
From this point of view, the spread of the idea of a “migration crisis” has profoundly transformed solidarity-related practices. The example of the implementation of AVR by all of these association-based and nongovernmental partners testifies to the vigor with which the discourse on the need to “ensure the orderly and humane management” [16] of state borders now permeates a part of the humanitarian sector—even if this means turning a blind eye to assistance practices that do not always respect fundamental rights, including the right to freedom of movement.
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