AFRICA/NIGERIA - Cardinal. Onaiyekan: "Immigration in Europe is not the answer to the frustration of unemployed youth"

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 migrants   caritas  

Abuja (Agenzia Fides) - "Human trafficking is likely to increase the number of frustrated people who cannot make ends meet. You know by the time you finish university and you are roaming the streets for three, four, five and six years no job and you reach 30 or 31 years of age with no future, it is very difficult to sit down quietly", said Cardinal John Oneiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja, speaking at the Conference on human trafficking, organized by Caritas Internationalis and the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, held in the Nigerian federal capital (see Fides 09/02/2016).
The Cardinal launches an appeal to the government to take urgent measures to relaunch the economy of the Country, in order to create jobs for young people. "Maybe the government are telling people to look for other ways of making a living, go to farm but government will have to do a little bit more to make it possible for young people to go to farm or do other things but to just sit down doing nothing and rotting away is a little bit frustrating".
"But, immigration to an unknown destination is not the real answer", said the Cardinal. "People say that it can always be better up there. It is not true. It can be worse over there than what you are facing here... At least here you have no winter; you can sleep under the bridge. You cannot sleep under the bridge there. You will die of cold", concluded the Cardinal. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 13/09/2016)


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