Chad

Les mouvements migratoires constituent de nos jours un phénomène mondial et le Tchad n’y échappe pas. Ils s’y présentent sous différents aspects, notamment la migration de main-d’œuvre, le regroupement familial et parfois les migrations pour des raisons sécuritaires. Face au développement accru des migrations, le Tchad s’est doté, aussi bien sur le plan international, régional que national, d’une importante législation permettant d’encadrer juridiquement ces déplacements des personnes. Au plan international, le Tchad a ratifié bon nombre d’instruments juridiques favorisant ainsi la promotion et la protection des droits de l’homme. Cependant, il y a lieu d’observer la non ratification de certaines conventions et particulièrement de la convention internationale sur la protection des travailleurs migrants et de leur famille ; ce qui démontre probablement un manque de volonté et de moyens nécessaires pour assurer la protection des migrants. Au plan national, la Constitution du 31 mars 1996, révisée en 2005, reste le texte fondamental. A cela s’ajoute la loi portant Code du travail au Tchad, le décret régissant l’Office National pour la promotion de l’emploi (ONAPE) et surtout l’arrêté du 4 décembre 1961 portant réglementation de l’accueil, du séjour et des conditions d’entrée des étrangers. Ces différents textes nationaux offrent un cadre juridique important pour la protection des migrants. / Migratory movements constitute a global phenomenon in which Chad is also involved. Migration in Chad varies greatly : reasons for migration include labour, family reunification and sometimes protection against insecurity. To deal with such forms of migrations and to legally frame circulation, Chad has adopted regulations at the international, national and regional levels. At the international level, Chad has ratified a number of conventions related to the promotion and protection of human rights. It has not ratified some treaties, however. For example, it has not ratified the international convention for the protection of all migrant workers and members of their family, which may show a lack of political will and also a lack of the means needed to guarantee the protection of migrants. At the national level, the fundamental text is the Constitution of 31 March 1996, revised in 2005. To this should be added the Labour Code, the decree regarding the national office for employment promotion and, above all, the decree of 4 December 1964 which governs reception, stay and entry conditions for migrants. These different national texts provide migrants with an important legal framework for their protection.

Depuis son accession à l’indépendance, le Tchad a connu une situation politique tumultueuse qui a favorisé un mouvement de population vers l’intérieur et vers l’extérieur. Le cadre juridique des migrations est basé sur les instruments internationaux et nationaux. Sur le plan international, le Tchad a signé de nombreux accords bilatéraux et multilatéraux avec des pays ou organisations dans deux buts : disposer d’une main d’œuvre hautement qualifiée et assurer la formation des futurs cadres tchadiens qui, pour la plupart, ne sont pas retournés au pays. Sur le plan interne, les constitutions, les lois et les textes d’application créent un cadre favorisant l’entrée des non nationaux au Tchad en vue de l’aider à atteindre les objectifs énoncés. Trois catégories de migrants relèvent du phénomène de la guerre civile vécue au Tchad pendant plus de quatre décennies. Il est observé que ceux qui étaient envoyés avec des bourses pour étudier ont fini par s’installer ailleurs après une haute qualification obtenue grâce à la prise en charge par leur communauté nationale. Une deuxième catégorie est constituée des demandeurs d’asile qui cherchent à préserver leur vie et celle de leur famille suite aux menaces ou des effets collatéraux de la guerre. La troisième catégorie est formée de hauts cadres qui quittent le pays pour s’enrôler dans les groupes armés. Généralement, ils constituent l’élite des rebellions, s’installent dans les pays d’accueil loin des lieux d’affrontement et ne reviennent que sous la protection d’un accord de paix suivi d’une loi d’amnistie. La migration hautement qualifiée existe mais elle est difficile à maîtriser. Aucune statistique générale et fiable n’est disponible. A ce jour, les services publics ne savent même pas quelle est l’importance du phénomène au Tchad et encore moins à l’extérieur, d’où la nécessité de poursuivre la recherche. Abstract Since independence Chad has experienced political difficulties which have encouraged Chadians to flee both inside and outside the country. The legal framework of migration in Chad is based on national and international acts. At the international level, Chad has signed numerous bilateral and multilateral agreements with countries or organisations for two purposes: keeping highly-qualified labour and assuring training for Chadians, who have not, for the most part, come back to the country. At the national level, constitutions, laws and executive instructions allow foreign nationals into Chad in order to help the country reach the goal noted above. One type of migrant are the students who were given scholarships and sent to study abroad, but who often remained abroad with a qualification paid for by their national Community. A second type of migrant are the asylum seekers and their families driven out of the country by threats and war. The third type of migrant are the highly-skilled staff who left the country in order to join foreign armed groups. In general, they make up the elite of rebellions, established in a host-country, very far from the front line and they only return under the protection of peace agreements and amnesties. Highly-qualified migration exists in Chad, but it is very difficult to get to grips with it. No general and reliable statistics are available. The public services there have not yet learnt the importance of the phenomenon in Chad and still less abroad. For this reason research must continue.

Conflict zones are key hubs in the global criminal economy, and nowhere is this correlation more evident than in the Sahel and central Sahara, where the proliferation of armed actors and their involvement in many of the subregion’s plethora of illicit markets have contributed to cyclical instability in the region. In the Sahel and central Sahara, armed actor involvement in the region’s illicit markets have been key contributors to cyclical instability there. Chadian fighters have long been key actors within the constellation of armed groups active in the region, but the October 2020 ceasefire in Libya – and the ensuing drop in fighting – are reshaping the role that they play in regional illicit markets and stability dynamics. Chadian fighters first emerged as key actors challenging peace and security in Libya while fighting as mercenaries there after the fall of Qaddafi in 2011. However, the consolidation of their peacetime involvement in Sahelian illicit economies since mid-2020 poses a more enduring, widespread, and unpredictable form of instability. This report describes the typologies of Chadian fighters active in Libya and the central Sahara, and their role as mercenaries and enablers in the transnational mercenary trade in Libya’s second civil war. The Chadian government’s failure to reintegrate rebels after the war is then analyzed before exploring how this has led to Chadian fighters consolidating their involvement in criminal economies. Finally, the risks of this involvement and, in particular, the menace that Chadian fighters pose to border security in the region are presented. This report’s release is timed to coincide with the planned government-led ‘national dialogue’ which will discuss the future of rebel armed groups in Chad and should pave the way for elections. It makes the case for the need to provide a safe corridor for Chadian fighters to return to Chad to prevent further destabilisation of the wider Sahel and Central Sahara region.

Les migrations hautement qualifiées de et vers le Tchad sont un phénomène peu connu et difficile à quantifier au vu de la carence de données statistiques. En effet, les deux dernières opérations censitaires de 1993 et 2009, considérées comme les plus importantes depuis l’accès du Tchad à l’indépendance (1960), n’ont fait qu’aborder l’aspect «migration» de et vers le Tchad, tout en se concentrant sur la migration interne. Malgré ces problématiques, cette étude propose des éléments de réflexion utiles afin de comprendre ce phénomène dans le cadre du contexte du pays. Quant à la question des immigrés, le Tchad n’est pas une terre d’accueil de migrants hautement qualifiés même si des membres d’organisations internationales y exercent différentes activités. Or le pays a constitué et constitue toujours un bastion d’approvisionnement en hauts cadres pour d’autres pays, suite notamment à la guerre civile commencée en 1979. Par ailleurs, beaucoup d’étudiants terminant leurs études à l’étranger ne retourneront pas aux Tchad, mais chercheront d’autres terres d’asile. C’est dans ce cadre que le projet « Transfert des connaissances par l’intermédiaire des nationaux expatriés » (TOKTEN) visant le retour des cadres et experts expatriés représente aujourd'hui une ressource fondamentale pour le Tchad. Abstract Due to insufficient statistical data, highly-skilled migration from and to Chad has been little studied. In fact, in the last two national censuses of 1993 and 2009, generally considered the most important population statistical sources since Chad’s independence in 1960, migration, other than internal migration, was not particularly focused upon. Despite these limitations, this paper hopes to examine highly-skilled Chadian migration. Historically, Chad has been characterized by huge highly-skilled outward flows rather than by highly-skilled inward flows. Specifically, after the civil war began in 1979, the majority of graduate students who studied abroad, decided not to return home in order to look for better jobs and life opportunities elsewhere. Indeed, we can affirm that the project ‘Transfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals’, that encourages the return of migrants who then contribute their skills and services to Chad’s development, has been a fundamental resource for the country.

The 2011 Libyan civil war, part of the wider Arab Spring, triggered considerable population displacements. These displacements included both Libyans and third-country nationals fleeing the country by land, air and sea. Data available for spring/summer 2011 shows that an estimated 1,128,985 people left Libya to seek shelter in Tunisia, Egypt, Niger, Algeria, Chad and Sudan as well as in Malta and Italy. Research has, thus far, mainly focused on the response of the international community (UNHCR and IOM, above all), the European Union and individual countries in dealing with large numbers of displaced persons (Kelly and Wadud 2012, Fargues and Fandrich 2012, Tucci 2012, Forced Migration Review 2012). Less attention has been given to those regional entities of which Libya has been a member. These include: the African Union (AU), the League of Arab States (LAS), the Community of Sahel Saharan States (CEN-SAD), the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC). The aim of this paper is, therefore, to shed light on the (actual and potential) role of these regional organizations in alleviating those fleeing from Libya.

La note analytique présente un aperçu descriptif des caractéristiques structurelles importantes permettant d’aborder le cadre général de la migration au Tchad . Dans un premier temps, l’auteur décrit le contexte général du pays et notamment les caractéristiques économiques, démographiques, sanitaires, la situation des femmes, et celles des réfugiés et des déplacés. Dans un deuxième temps, il aborde le contexte sociopolitique caractérisant le pays en évoquant deux dynamiques : sociohistorique et organisationnelle. Finalement, il présente le résultat de la collecte de données sociopolitiques dans le domaine de la migration tout en confirmant qu’au Tchad la question de la migration reste un chantier vierge et non-institutionalisée. / The present analytical note seeks to describe the main structural features necessary for a study of Chad’s migration framework. To this end, the author first looks at the country’s general context, namely the economic, demographic and sanitary characteristics, while also examining the situation of women, refugees and the displaced. Next, the study attempts to sum up the socio-political context in Chad, while taking into account its socio-historical and organizational dynamics. Finally, the author sets out the findings of migration-related socio-political data and confirms that migration issues remain under explored and non-institutionalized .

Since the mid 1990s, the media have directed our attention to the thousands of Southern Sahara Africans who take life threatening risks crossing the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic ocean. Their numbers on migratory routes leading to Europe are increasing, joining up, especially in the “Libyan crossroad” with North Africans, Egyptians and even Asian migrants on the same quest. This image reflects reality, but only partially so, for it leads one to believe that these migrants cross the Sahara in the hope of reaching Europe. It should be pointed out that one of the main misunderstandings when evoking these migrations flows is to reduce them to the act of crossing the straits of the Mediterranean Sea. Since the 1990s, the Libyan case exemplifies the way the multilateral (EU-Maghreb) or bilateral (Libya-Italy) political negotiations between the two shores of the Mediterranean sea rapidly focus on the figure of the “illegal sub-Saharan migrant in transit”. This simplistic view is dangerous because it erases the historical dimension of the movement of people and its consequences. The Sahara is not merely a desert to be crossed; it is an area that has been shaped for more than half a century by the various migrant, trader or pastoral communities who have contributed to its massive urbanisation and economic development. At the same time, the reorganization of African migration is affected by the inflation of tensions, border and police controls, the diversification of routes between Niger, Chad Sudan and Libya consequently contributes to the perpetuation of transit spaces. There are tens of thousands of these migrants who settle down more or less durably in these new transit areas dependants on opportunity, status controls, and expulsions. But these transit areas have also become places where migrants seek employment, create new economic activities, or develop new skills while working, studying or practicing other tongues. As migration patterns across the Sahara are reconfigured, the impact is more visible in some places. But their durability should not be taken for granted. Villages specialised in the transit economy may easily decline as new diplomatic relations are formed between countries of immigration and third countries.

Since the 2012 crisis and its culmination in the 2013 coup d’état, the borderlands of the Central African Republic have turned into a hotspot of violent conflict involving migratory (transhumant) herders and farmers, armed groups and self-defence groups. This has further eroded already compromised social cohesion and governance institutions. Against this backdrop, FCDO’s UK Aid Direct and the European Union’s BEKOU Trust Fund awarded Concordis a three-year programme entitled, “Promoting peaceful and safe seasonal migration in northern Central African Republic”. This aims to contribute to peace and poverty reduction in northern CAR by fostering community-based conflict resolution between nomadic herders and settled populations. The programme covers the borderlands between CAR, Chad, Sudan and Cameroon, focusing on the prefectures of Ouham-Pendé, Ouham, Bamingui Bangoran and Vakaga. The first phase of the programme comprised a large-scale mapping and consultation exercise, collecting detailed quantitative and qualitative information through individual questionnaires and focus groups with those involved in or affected by seasonal transhumance, consulting over 2,500 people in the targeted areas between February and June 2019. The purpose of this consultation was to identify grassroots challenges to peace and opportunities to promote social cohesion and economic development. It is intended to inform subsequent phases of the conflict resolution programme and provide a baseline against which impacts of ensuing interventions may be measured. This report covers the consultation in the prefectures of Ouham-Pendé and Ouham, with the key challenges, project figures and findings, as well as a suite of recommendations, presented in graphic format immediately below. A detailed discussion of the methodology is provided as an annex at the end of the report. For the intervention to deliver sustainable outcomes, it is necessary to avoid the temptation of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. The implementation of the recommendations offered here requires distinct approaches in each area, recognizing existing initiatives and listening to the needs, fears and hopes stakeholders express. This entails discussions being held at the local level with representatives of all stakeholder groups, in order to plan and deliver interventions that are responsive to the lived reality of each unique situation.

The MACIMIDE Global Expatriate Dual Citizenship Dataset charts the rules that existed in near all states of the world since 1960 with regard to the loss or renunciation of citizenship after a citizen of a respective state voluntarily acquires the citizenship of another state. The central variable of the Dataset is the dualcit_cat variable. This is a categorical variable whose values may be used to interpret, in broad lines, the position of a country with regards to the expatriate dual citizenship. The dualcit_cat variable reflects what consequences the legislation and legal practice of a country attaches to the voluntary acquisition of a foreign citizenship. The value of this variable depends on a number of criteria, including whether a citizen of the reference country who voluntarily obtains a foreign citizenship automatically loses – in principle – the citizenship of the origin country, and whether a citizen of the reference country can renounce that citizenship. The value assigned to dualcit_cat reflects the position of the country on the 1st of January of the reference year. Any subsequent changes in legislation will be reflected in the dualcit_cat value of the following year and included in updated versions of the Dataset. The dualcit_binary variable is a recoding of the dualcit_cat variable. This variable can be used for broad comparisons of the dual citizenship positions around the world. The possible values reflect whether the legislation of a country, in a given reference year, provides for the automatic loss of the origin citizenship (1) or not (2). All data have been centrally collected and refer to specific provisions in national law.

Since the mid-1970s, the World Population Policies Database, last updated in 2015, provides comprehensive and up-to-date information on the population policy situation and trends for all Member States and non-member States of the United Nations. Among several areas, the database shows the evolution of government views and policies with respect to internal and international migration. The migration strand covers internal migration, immigration, emigration, and return. The Database is updated biennially by conducting a detailed country-by-country review of national plans and strategies, programme reports, legislative documents, official statements and various international, Inter-governmental and non-governmental sources, as well as by using official responses to the United Nations Inquiry among Governments on Population and Development.

The Inquiry gathers critically important data for monitoring the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and other international agreements, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Inquiry, mandated by the General Assembly in its resolution 1838 (XVII) of 18 December 1962, has been conducted by the Secretary-General at regular intervals since 1963. The Twelfth Inquiry consists of multiple-choice questions, organized in three thematic modules: Module I on population ageing and urbanization; Module II on fertility, family planning and reproductive health; and Module III on international migration. In 1994, Member States attending the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo agreed that “population-related goals and policies are integral parts of cultural, economic and social development” and recommended that actions be taken “to measure, assess, monitor and evaluate progress towards meeting the goals of its Programme of Action”. The year 2019 will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Cairo conference and adoption of the ICPD Programme of Action, which continues to provide crucial guidance for addressing the fundamental development challenges facing the world today. Population issues are also at the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted in 2015. The United Nations Inquiry among Governments on Population and Development (the “Inquiry”) gathers critically important data for monitoring the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action and other international agreements, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Inquiry, mandated by the General Assembly in its resolution 1838 (XVII) of 18 December 1962, has been conducted by the Secretary-General at regular intervals since 1963. The most recent Inquiry, the Eleventh, was implemented in 2014.

The index is based on three types of entry visa restrictions: visa required, visa not required for short stays and visa not required. The author identifies country pairs which changed their visa regime during 1998–2010. This immigration policy index is constructed for all countries and territories in the world for both March 1998 and November 2009. This index is heterogeneous across destination and origin countries as well as over time.