Current public policy debates address many migration-related issues and require timely as well as balanced communications. These issues include internal displacement, environmental migration, irregular migration, smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons, mixed migration, migrant health, labour migration, migrant rights, family reunification, integration and social cohesion, remittances and sustainable development. Each of these issues is crosscut by child, gender and protection dimensions as well. Although often interconnected, they are all subjects in their own right, requiring specific technical knowledge, careful use of language, and targeted communications strategies and approaches. Several terms used in communications are specifically defined in international law (see International migration law).
- IOM, International Migration Law: Glossary on Migration, 2019. This document was published to address variations and inconsistent vocabulary when States and other actors are speaking about migration. This is done by providing definitions of migration-relevant terms, based on binding international instruments.
- Communication needs to have a specific goal tied to policy objectives.
- Target audience should be clearly defined.
- Research on attitudes can clarify concerns felt by people across all segments of society. Persuasive communication efforts aimed at changing people’s minds and behaviour should be based on such research.
- Key messages should be relevant to the specific migration management issues at hand.
- Inclusive communications are informed by different perspectives. The best way to achieve this is to involve different partners, including migrant and local communities that are diverse and representative, local authorities, media and businesses.
- To communicate clearly, avoid jargon and insider language.
- Incorporating individual migrants’ stories makes advocacy messages more relevant and meaningful.
The misuse of terminology in public discourse, as well as the malicious use of some terms, can imply inaccurate meanings and can bias the debate on migration. Such situations make it harder to effectively manage migration, and as well fuel prejudice and xenophobia.
The use of correct terminology is critical to effective communication on migration. It ensures a more informed understanding and lessens the risk of misinformation that stigmatizes and vilifies migrants. It also lays the ground for more balanced and constructive public discourse, which can in turn support informed policy action.
When communicating on migration, it is important to refer to migrants as “persons.” There are many different ways to identify people (i.e., immigrant, emigrant, asylum seeker, refugee), but it is important to have an approach which recognizes the individual as a rights holder and a human being.
IOM/Amanda Nero, 2016.
The following are important terminologies to note:
Migrant or refugee?
A migrant is any person who is moving or has moved, across an international border or within a State, away from that person’s habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status; (2) whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary; (3) what the causes of the movement are; and for whom, at the time of moving, imminent return was not envisaged or possible (more in The global context of international migration).
The term refugee is defined and covered by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, which provides specific protection and rights to refugees. States are responsible for the determination of refugee status.
A person who, owing to well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinions, is outside the country of his [or her] nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself [or herself] of the protection of that country.
United Nations, 1967.
The terms environmental migrant and environmental refugee are now being employed to describe those on the move in the context of environmental change. These terminologies are still debated as they imply different rights and obligations. Currently there is no legal basis in international law for these terms (more in Migration, environment and climate change).
The term asylum seeker, which has frequently been misused, refers to an individual who is seeking international protection whose claim has not yet been finally decided. Ultimately, not every asylum seeker is recognized as a refugee (IOM, 2019) (more in International migration law).
Given these definitions, the term migrant can be used as a general or initial reference when communicating on irregular migration or mixed migration. Migrants can include refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs), migrant workers, environmental migrants, victims of trafficking and unaccompanied children. When there is certainty that someone is a refugee, however, that term needs to be applied.
It is well known in migration studies that many citizens have inaccurate perceptions concerning migration. Most citizens believe that the number of migrants is much higher than what it actually is. In the United States of America, the number of migrants is actually one third of what citizens believe it is (Chaparro, 2017). This is because many citizens, in a very simplistic way, believe that all people who look different from the majority of the neighbourhood residents are migrants. Somewhat surprisingly, these beliefs are held not only about members of minority communities, but sometimes also about homeless people, internal migrants, nomadic citizens or people of lower social classes (Bello, 2017a).
Chaparro, 2017; Bello, 2017a.
Irregular or illegal migration?
Irregular migration has been defined as the movement of persons that takes place outside the laws, regulations, or international agreements governing the entry into or exit from the State of origin, transit or destination. This is the preferred term for the movement of people outside regular migration channels (more on Regular versus irregular migration).
The term illegal migration—or illegal migrant—suggests that the migration is criminal and implies that the migrant’s human rights need not be respected. Migrants, as any human beings, can never be illegal. Someone who has committed theft is not an “illegal human being” even if the person has committed a criminal act.
The term irregular (instead of “illegal”) migration is thus recommended, because irregular migrants are not illegal human beings but people who are in an irregular situation. The term “irregular migrants” includes migrants who may not have had any choice other than using irregular channels, and whose actions, therefore, may not be, and/or should not be, regarded as illegal. These include refugees, victims of trafficking and migrant children. Not all migrants are automatically law abiding, just as not all citizens are; but being irregularly on a territory does not make you an “illegal person.”
Smuggling or trafficking?
These two terminologies are often and incorrectly used interchangeably in the public domain (see Trafficking and smuggling). Nevertheless, under international law trafficking victims require additional or special protection. Using the correct term helps to identify and protect victims, and to prompt specific policy or programmatic responses. For example, the inability to highlight victims of trafficking in crisis communications could disrupt or delay programme responses at borders to identify and protect them.
IOM/Amanda Nero, 2017.
Gender in communications
Although men and women migrate in nearly equal numbers, they are not always portrayed in ways that represent their actual numbers. Sometimes they are portrayed through stereotypes. Avoiding stereotyping gender groups can increase understanding and knowledge of the complexity of the migration challenges, which allows for more effective policy responses. For example, men and boys are also victims of trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation, not only women and girls. Women migrants and girls are not only victims, but also leaders, entrepreneurs and breadwinners.
Further, gender groups include not only male and female but also those who identify as non-binary individuals. Different gender groups experience migration differently, often receiving unequal treatment and access to social protection and services (more in Gender and migration). Ensuring gender balance and representativeness in terms of the number of stories and images featured in communications is therefore important.
- IOM, Gender and Communications Toolkit, 2015.
- Hennebry et al., Mis/representations of Women Migrant Workers in the Media, 2017.
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NEUTRAL, FACT-BASED LANGUAGE |
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| WHOLE-OF-GOVERNMENT |
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| TRANSPARENCY |
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COMPREHENSIVENESS |
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| PARTNERSHIP |
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| PROACTIVE AND TIMELY |
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Neutral language and fact-based
Migration is a human story with a diverse cast. Acknowledging this is an important aspect of communications concerning migration. It is best to avoid words that describe migrants in terms that evoke disaster (flood/wave), crisis, military (invasion), inhuman (swarms), threat (illegal/criminals) or pressure (strain). This ensures government is not instigating nor contributing to hate speech and intolerance by creating Them versus Us narratives. Adopting neutral language and tone allows for a more reasoned debate, leading to effective policies. It reduces general hostility to migration, builds trust in government among migrant populations, can save lives and lays the ground for successful integration into communities.
To address the myth of migrant numbers in countries of destination, government communications can compare migrant population data and annual net migration figures with the latest perception and opinion poll studies. In most countries where accurate migrant population information is given, people are less likely to say their country had too many immigrants, as compared to countries in which people are not given such data (McAuliffe and Ruhs, 2017 (more on Communicating facts in the next topic section of this chapter).
Whole-of-government communication
Migration may be the overall responsibility of a single government ministry or department. However, migration intersects with many other issues, falling under the remit of several official bodies. To ensure policy success, communication must be aligned across government.
Accurate facts should be the bedrock of migration communication. Government can improve data sharing, harmonize data use and align terminologies for coherent communication by strengthening cooperation and coordination between national statistic offices, ministries and organizations producing migration data (for more information, see Data, research and analysis for policymaking).
IOM, 2013.
All concerned entities should be aware of overall migration policy and communications goals (Ahad and Banulescu-Bogdan, 2019). It is helpful for all government bodies working on migration-related issues to know what information each of the others is planning to produce, and when. An audit is a good way to generate and share this knowledge. This helps each department or ministry to know how the information it produces will impact others. By creating organic and formal systems for close collaboration between all relevant entities, government communication on migration can be both coherent and integrated. Specialist inputs with different perspectives strengthen knowledge and understanding across government with knock-on effects for policymaking.
Further, it is useful to involve and coordinate with local and regional governments as “first responders” (IOM, 2018). This will result in more authentic and authoritative communication, grounded in the lived experiences of migrants and those working with them. It can increase the local buy-in of national policies and encourage community support in policy implementation.
Transparency
It is crucial to address public concerns directly. Explaining situations and the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike is important for clarifying the rationale behind government’s immigration policies. Doing so prevents social and political misunderstandings, making migration rules and procedures more accessible. For this reason, consultations are a very important component in policymaking (more in Consultation).
Information needs to be open, timely and simple to find, using multiple mass and social media channels and other tools. Two-way communication channels with the public have the dual benefit of relaying information and gathering diverse inputs to feed back into policy and programmes. They demonstrate that government is listening. However, multimedia communication is resource and time intensive. Communicating transparently therefore requires adequate resourcing with a whole-of-government collaboration to deliver more effective communications.
Informing and engaging local residents on specific migration issues, such as the opening of migration centres, can help deescalate or even avoid tensions. The case of the City of Hamburg in Germany offers a well-informed example.
To mitigate public anger over the location of a migrant reception centre, local officials in Hamburg organized 34 workshops during which participants received a comprehensive presentation of the complex subject matter. The workshops were advertised through different media channels and brochures, reaching 5 million citizens. The sessions were attended by 400 residents. The attendees were introduced to the general topic of refugee accommodation and were invited to ask questions concerning the sites proposed for the centres.
Different media tools were used, from projection of animated movies to the use of maps. Local residents who attended the workshops were given access to all available data on different possible locations for each of the seven districts of the city of Hamburg, from the number of resident migrants in the district, to the available parcels, enabling them to help identify the most suitable sites. These were then submitted to the Central Refugee Coordination Staff who selected the sites that best responded to all established criteria.
The consultation was successful despite important challenges. Some participants expressed concern that the consultation was manipulated by the government to politically control the response to the creation of refugee centres. However, when it became clear that the criticisms were based mostly on vague or incorrect information, the concerns were addressed through the provision of more precise information and further discussion of specific locations, as part of the process.
Ahad and Banulescu-Bogdan, 2019; Noyman et al., 2017.
Comprehensiveness
Communication strategies will be most effective if they target various phases of migration. For instance, at the pre-departure phase and in transit, it is helpful if potential migrants are informed through national and local campaigns about both the limits of migration, and the opportunities that it offers. Detailed information on how to get help when in distress and on how to avoid illegal recruiters or smugglers and human traffickers are also important.
It is important to provide migrants, upon their arrival in destination countries, with clear and accurate information of all laws and specific requirements associated with their status (such as those concerning the duration and purpose of their stay, or work permits). Making informed choices throughout the process of migration is one key factor for both the safety and the success of migration stories. Such national campaigns can also provide information about employment-related agencies, migrant associations and other services.
Usually, such campaigns benefit from a partnership between different actors in addition to government ministries and local authorities, such as the media, civil society associations, diasporas, NGOs, and also private businesses and schools. Media are crucial to the success of these campaigns, because they can help ensure the campaigns reach a broad sector of the population, both locally and nationally (see Media landscape in the migration context).
These campaigns can be more useful if they involve the migrants themselves, who can explain the reality of their journeys. In general, peer-to-peer communication is more effective than official messages, particularly in areas where public trust towards official institutions is low. To raise awareness of migration risks and opportunities, for instance, interviews could be broadcast with returnees in origin countries, including stories both of success and of failure. Similar campaigns can be offered in transit countries as well, to inform those who are still on the move and could end up in distress.
Migrants as Messengers (MaM), a peer-to-peer awareness-raising campaign, was implemented in several West African countries through town hall events, screened video testimonies and interactive Q&A sessions with migrant returnees. Potential migrants reached by such campaigns, as well as those who had expressed an interest in migration, felt better informed and more aware of the risks of irregular migration. Engaging migrant returnees as trusted messengers in peer-to-peer communications is an efficient communication strategy on migration.
Dunsch, Tjaden and Quiviger, 2019.
Partnerships for maximum outreach
A crucial role in communicating on migration is played by local authorities in the communities where migrants live. It is important that local authorities be engaged in dispelling myths and sensitizing their communities to issues regarding migration by communicating with properly contextualized information. Cities can act as an interface for coordination and as a partner with national government communication strategists by drawing on culturally diverse resources to build inclusion, mutual understanding and social cohesion. Local authorities are also well placed to inform migrants of their rights and of the services provided to them on the ground (Mediterranean City-to-City Migration [MC2CM], 2019).
Partnering with local authorities, migrant associations and diasporas, community leaders, civil society, businesses and international organizations allows for more informed communications and wider outreach. It also helps to produce a more coherent and better coordinated migration response, and it creates links enabling others to be the messenger on a government policy or action (more in Developing migration policy).
Partnerships with the arts communities have been effective platforms for the dissemination of positive narratives on migration. Here are two examples:
- The Global Migration Film Festival runs annually from the last week of November to International Migrants Day on 18 December. The 2018 festival featured more than 500 screenings of curated film content from around the world in 104 countries. Each event provided a venue for migrants, government, civil society representatives and experts in the field to meet and discuss the issues both formally and informally.
- A mapping exercise of cultural programmes related to migration was commissioned by the European Commission. Ninety-six initiatives were identified as specific actions aiming to integrate immigrants through arts. The majority of these cultural activities took place in Barcelona, Berlin and London, and most have been organized by local NGOs or civil society associations and artist movements. However, in some cases local authorities fund these activities (McGregor and Ragab, 2016).
Proactive and timely communication
Governments can avert socioeconomic and political crises and lessen public anxiety through proactive, timely and transparent communications. By steering the initial terms of debate and ensuring that the government perspective is evident in public and media discourse, prompt and accurate communication can eliminate or reduce space for misinformation to emerge and spread. It is also an important strategy for rebutting false or misleading information in the public domain that could develop into a crisis or impact upon people and communities. During emergencies or post-conflict situations, timely, accurate and clear information saves lives and dissipates rumours and hearsay that increase social tension. This mitigates potential conflict and prevents a humanitarian situation from deteriorating.
Information campaigns are a combination of interrelated and mutually reinforcing activities that can be tailored to get out a specific message to as broad or as narrow an audience as required in order to influence or change behaviour. The power of any information campaign to change perceptions comes from its credibility. This is best served by truthful and balanced information. Campaigns are more impactful if they form part of a range of communication measures and if they:
- Have a clear objective;
- Collaborate across ministries from planning to execution for alignment and accuracy;
- Are grounded in evidence-based research, not assumptions;
- Are part of a wider package of measures aimed at solving migration issues;
- Have a clearly defined target audience and, if relevant, are age and/or gender specific.
- Have messages that resonate, not peddle fear;
- Balance the “positive” with the “negative” message, as either extreme can be counterproductive;
- Use a campaign “messenger” who inspires audience trust in the information or generates empathy;
- Understand the ways that target audiences consume information, and integrate that knowledge into the production and dissemination strategies of the campaign;
- Build in solid evaluation tools from the start to increase learning for future campaigns.
IOM, 2017; Tjaden, Morgenstern and Laczko, 2018.
The Philippines have produced campaigns to inform prospective workers of the risks and opportunities that migration entails. The campaigns, which are supported by The Philippines Overseas Employment Authority (POEA), have a clear target audience, a clear objective and a well selected means of communication for their campaigns.
In the Philippines, radio is the most widely used medium of communication. The POEA broadcasts a radio programme in partnership with local NGOs on Sundays, so as to reach workers, especially those in the urban areas. They include information about the labour market, the culture of destination countries and how to recognize and stay safe from illegal recruiters. In addition to the radio programme, the information campaigns also include other activities, such as local workshops, face-to-face meetings with returnees, and trainings offering basic information on migration risks and opportunities.
The campaigns also include public service advertisements, comics, cartoons, and posters communicating the risks and opportunities of migration, and on the POEA website they offer detailed information on embassies and recruitment agencies, and provide extensive information on illicit recruitment and access to a helpline in case of distress.
Development Research Centre, 2008.
- Words matter. Training across government to align knowledge, understanding and agreement on the use of migration terminology ensures consistency and coherence.
- Know your goal, who your target audiences are, and which tools and platforms will better reach them.
- Interactive and face-to-face communications such as digital media, town halls, public consultations or focus group discussions addressing migration challenges are key listening mechanisms that build trust in government and potentially identify solutions.
- Foster strong partnerships with all migration stakeholders.
- Factoring people’s emotions and lived experiences of migration into communication strategies produces messages and content that resonate among wider audiences.