In this regard, the migration of Ethiopians to South Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon, which started coincidentally with regime changes in two countries in the mid-nineties (Estifanos 2015). It specifically examines (1) how smuggling and social networks interact with and are shaped by the economic and political order; and (2) how social networks are affected by immigration and labor market policies in settlement processes. The latter is observed in the case of Ethiopian migrants in South Africa (Estifanos 2016; Estifanos and Zack 2019).
Social networks in the host space can also be exclusionary and even exploitative (Waldinger 1996; Poros 2011). The first was carried out in 2014 and focused on investigating smuggling networks in the Ethiopia-South Africa migration corridor. In the 2014 study on the operation of the smuggling networks, ethnographic research was conducted with 20 Ethiopian informants in Johannesburg and its satellite informal townships in July, August and September.
A few interviews were interrupted because respondents did not feel comfortable in the middle of the interview. Based on the collected data in the area as well as available literature, the study used thematic analysis.
Findings and Discussion Manufacturing Immigrants
Of the 40 key informant interviews (33 in South Africa and 7 in Ethiopia), 33 key informants were male and 7 female, consistent with the male-dominated migration to South Africa. Therefore, a large number of Ethiopian migrants moved to South Africa in the hope of taking advantage of trade opportunities in the short to medium term. Some local smugglers also use wedding videos as "propaganda" to encourage migration to South Africa.
South Africa is portrayed as an imaginary place where money abounds and success is inevitable. The positive changes for migrant families have encouraged surrounding communities to send members of their families to South Africa. The Protestant church receives donations from the pastors and the pastors are invited to South Africa for preaching purposes.
One desperate migrant even married a local girl in Hosaena just to finance his migration to South Africa. Triggered by the migration of his immediate friends (elder and younger brother who used to run a profitable restaurant in his neighborhood), Sintayehu left for South Africa. I married her and her relatives in South Africa covered the smuggling money from Malawi to South Africa.
Brokers, smugglers and other actors and institutions facilitate every part of the migration journey to and settlement in South Africa (Estifanos and Zack 2019; Fekadu et al 2019; Estifanos 2015). I could have come to South Africa when I first arrived in Kenya, but I didn't have the desire. And we chose to come to South Africa because we had nowhere else to go.
Even political émigrés like Kibru considered South Africa a transit to the countries of the global north.
Manufacturing Smugglers
While many pioneer Ethiopian migrants went to South Africa with the prior intention of using it as a transit to cross into countries in the Global North (Gebre TL et al 2010), others had felt emboldened to consider moving beyond South Africa , when they had established their economic power and had developed their social and political capital. Others were forced to change direction due to the stressful and risky environment of the informal economy in South Africa, and still others considered moving out of South Africa because they were worried about their children's future. The majority of informants indicated that their migration and settlement processes are linked in many ways, from financing the migration to employing smugglers and inserting them into South Africa's informal economy once they arrive.
Investigation into the operation of the smuggling networks indicates that cross-border networks of smugglers and other actors are complicated. Tadele and other migrants tell how migrants, smugglers, hosts and financial institutions work together in a transnational environment to facilitate the migration, reactivate or boost the settlement of migrants in South Africa and. A combination of market forces, border control, corruption and a strong drive for migration to South Africa inspires the creation of a community enterprise around the smuggling enterprise.
And when the smuggler hears from his family, in the form of text, the new smuggler smuggled my cousin and me into South Africa. During his migration to South Africa, he actively participated in the smuggling network, flying directly to Kenya and bribing an officer at Kenya's airport to transit to Mozambique. Sahle brought a lot of money and that same evening he asked us to take him to South Africa.
They begged me strongly to go with them; they even promised me they would give me money to return if I didn't feel happy in South Africa. He was working in a shop in Kenya when suddenly he met two Ethiopian ladies, and they asked him to accompany them to South Africa, because he spoke English and was more mature than them. I only have language skills; I have zero knowledge about the place and the route to South Africa.
Desperate migrants also draw regular residents living in various transit countries into the smuggling networks.
Manufacturing Exploitations
There is also an increase in the time and costs for migrants crossing the border. This is especially prevalent in the case of illegal immigrants who settle in the informal labor market. Many of the Ethiopian migrants interviewed recently deplore the exploitation they have faced in South Africa's informal economy.
Once the transition period is over, and after the abolition of smugglers' taxes in the case of boss-sponsored migration, chiefs try to hold the frontiers back from establishing their own business, for fear of direct competition from the new arrivals, and because chiefs may wish to expand their own profit power from the labor of these newcomers. So when the border arrives, he or she will suffer in the townships while the boss stays in the cities and enjoys the relative peace. Monica Boyd argues that little systematic attention is given to gender in the development and persistence of networks across time and space (Boyd, 1989).
From the perspective of family ties in the functioning of the ethnic enclave, he emphasizes that the persistence of the gender division of labor and its new expressions are key to the success of the ethnic enclaves. Women who migrate to marry men who are established migrants in the host country do not do so without intervention. The husband got up in the morning and went into town to meet and eat breakfast, usually dulet [minced meat], with his friends.
Such exploitation is embedded in the power relations between male and female migrants, recent and pioneer migrants, bosses and frontiers, or even between spouses. The complicity of structural forces in creating conditions that exposed migrants to exploitation was witnessed in the collected narratives. Migrants working in the informal sector, like many newly arrived Ethiopians, face the intersection between the risks associated with working informally and the risks associated with being a migrant.
These risks create situations where those who can can protect themselves from risks by placing more vulnerable migrants in the businesses most at risk.
Conclusion
Instead of addressing the functioning of smuggling networks, governments across source, transit and destination countries create favorable conditions for smugglers to operate, exacerbating the risks migrants face and increasing the cost of smuggling. In the context of increasing power imbalances between states (or supranational states) and transnational smuggling networks, the argument that smugglers provide protection from below is debatable. Similarly, as much as social networks are important to irregular migrants in their migration and settlement processes by providing information and advice, reducing risks and costs, extending emotional and recreational support, they can also be exploitation networks.
Irregular migrants who settle in the informal economies of host countries also need protection from above.
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