Using examples to support your answer, examine the relative importance of the push factors that lead to forced and voluntary migrations

Using examples to support your answer, examine the relative importance of the push factors that lead to forced and voluntary migrations

Migration is defined as the movement of people across a specified boundary (national or international) to establish a permanent place of residence. The UN refers to how generally, migration is when there is a change in residence lasting more than a year. Push factors are those which force people away from the area in which they live and these can have varying levels of importance in forced and voluntary migrations. Forced migration is when people are forced to leave their homes and move to another place as it is unsafe for reasons such as religious discrimination or they could be facing persecution. By contrast, voluntary migration is when people move away in order to get a better quality of life such as moving for to an area with better employment prospects.

Push factors are especially important when there is forced migration as people have little choice but to migrate and so the importance of pull factors is lower. An example of forced migration which I have studied is the migration of refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Tanzania. The principle push factor in this migration is the deadly war that is taking place. It is estimated that 3.3 million people were killed, the largest in a war since World War II and in 2005, 1000 people were dying every day from war-related causes. This was the main push factor as people feared for their lives and ended up fleeing to neighbouring countries and if there was no war, the migration would not have taken place. Another important push factor was that people were being persecuted for their ethnicity. For example, one family, the Fatakis’, felt they needed to migrate after their mother was killed for being part of the Tutsi, an ethnic group frequently persecuted by other groups. This is a key characteristic of forced migration as it shows that people are migrating away as if they stay they will be persecuted against due to their ethnicity and so migrate as refugees. These factors are shown to be of great importance as some camps in Tanzania such as Lungufu house 30,000 refugees and cover 20 square miles and are full of people who have migrated away due to the war and facing persecution in the DRC. The importance of push factors is also shown as there are many negative factors at the destination and obstacles. Negative factors at the destination are those which make people think twice about migrating. Intervening obstacles are those which could stop the migration from happening. At the destination, Tanzania, refugees are confined to refugee camps which are built of mud and straw which have high levels of unemployment and also boredom which are all negative factors. Further, to get to Tanzania people had to travel, often in dangerous situations where their lives were at risk and through icy waters with constant fears of drowning. However, thousands of people still made the migration highlighting the key importance of the push factors.