From Migration Hub to Asylum Crisis: The Changing Dynamics of Contemporary Migration in Yemen Hélène Thiollet To cite this version: Hélène Thiollet. From Migration Hub to Asylum Crisis: The Changing Dynamics of Contemporary Migration in Yemen. Helen Lackner. Why Yemen Matters, Saqi Books, pp.265 - 285, 2014. hal- 01675524 HAL Id: hal-01675524 https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01675524 Submitted on 4 Jan 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. !"#$%&&' ($") *+,$-%+"' .#/ %" 0123#) 4$+1+1: 56& 46-',+', 72'-)+81 "! 4"'%&)9"$-$2 *+,$-%+"' +' :&)&' Hélène !iollet .+1%"$+8-332, :&)&' 6-1 /&&' a country of emigration, immigra- tion and transit. ;e fate of Yemeni society has been tied to emigration, as well as to the presence and activities of a Yemeni diaspora scattered throughout the world, in the Gulf countries mainly since the <=>?s, in Asia and Africa, and also in the United States and Europe. Yemen’s migration history seems to have reached a stalemate in the past two decades as, gradually since the <==?s, the borders of oil-producing countries have become largely closed to Yemenis. Since the early <==?s the country has also had to deal with a substantial in@ux of refugees from the Horn of Africa, who have con- tinued to seek asylum in a country plagued by its own political crisis. In addition, from A??? onwards, there has been signiBcant internal displacement as the country unravels – as a result of the Sa‘ada war in the north since A??C, and the southern insurrection since A??D. Most recently, the national uprising of A?<< has also had side eEects involving additional displacement. Forced and economic migration are connected in Yemen, as the country plays a strategic role in the management of migratory and traFcking @ows between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula. In the Brst part of this chapter, I examine the historical structure of mobility to and from Yemen, and assess the importance of migration AGG | .H3I'& 56+"33&% as a core element of the country’s domestic and international proBle. In the second part, I examine refugee movements from the endemic humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa; for these refugees, Yemen represents a staging-post and, paradoxically, a ‘safe haven’. Finally, I consider the local and regional impact of a new trend of mobility – internal displacement – as a consequence of the various con@icts that have been taking place in the country relating to the A?<< uprisings. !"#"$ %& % '()*%+(,$ -./: '()*%$+&, 0(1 %$2 3")(,$%1 4,1(+(5& Long-term immigration and emigration patterns highlight the extent to which Yemen has been embedded in international commercial and cultural exchange networks as far back as the medieval period. Histor- ically a commercial crossroads, Yemen sits at a junction between three continents – Europe, Asia and Africa – and two maritime expanses – the Indian Ocean and the Red (and then Mediterranean) Sea. It is a zone of exchange and mobility, channelling economic, Bnancial and human @ows. Emigration from Yemen therefore has a long history, and has traditionally followed a number of diEerent routes. ;e main overland route consists of the caravan trails to the Gulf and the Near East. By sea there have been many destinations: the maritime routes of the Red Sea to Egypt and onward to the Berber parts of the Maghreb, to Africa (East Africa and the Horn), to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, to Europe and North America, and, from the middle of the twentieth century, to the oil-exporting countries of the Arabian peninsula. Yemeni migration to Asia has been studied extensively.< It has mainly been in the direction of Muslim societies such as Malaysia, the western part of India, and Indonesia, where – real or imagined – descendants of the Prophet Muhammad from the region of Had- ramaut form trading and religious elites to this day.A In Yemen itself, the Banyan merchants from India, who Brst settled in the sixteenth century, have also long played a central role in retail and commerce throughout the country. ;e city of Aden in particular was a major port of entry for exchanges with the Horn of Africa.J In the seven- teenth century, Yemen started to lose its status as an essential port of < (Vallet A?<<; Ho A??G) A (Narayan Chaudhuri <==?; Freitag and Clarence-Smith <==D) J (Pankhurst <=DC) %6& 86-',+', K2'-)+81 "! )+,$-%+"' +' 2&)&' | AGD call on the trading sea route between East and West, and commercial activity began to subside. However, in some parts of the country social structures, cultural practices and economic development have been profoundly in@uenced by these various migratory movements. Before British colonization in<LJ=, Yemenis from Hadramaut and YaB‘i led the armies of the Nizam of Hyderabad in India, accumulating small fortunes that beneBted their regions of origin. Hadramaut remained outside the economic orbit of the British, based in Aden, thanks to the wealth of its emigrants and the important role they played as eco- nomic, religious and political middlemen; they remained strongly linked to Asia aMer the country’s formal independence.C Between <=<C and <=C>, around J? per cent of Hadramaut’s population lived in India, Singapore, Indonesia or East Africa, and the island of Java was home to D?,??? Yemeni residents. ;e impact and consequences of emigration could – and still can – be seen in the Asian-in@uenced architecture of Tarim. Likewise, emigrants have bought into the property market in Sana‘a.> Social credit earned by emigrants who have ‘made good’ abroad has some- times disturbed traditional hierarchies based on tribal ties.G New forms of social stratiBcation created by emigration and urbanization are now superimposed on territorial and tribal hierarchies. In some contexts, emigration could also contribute to improving the status or living conditions of women (through additional responsibility but also a heavier workload in rural areas, due to the absence of men) and of young people (who were partially emancipated through migration from patriarchal authority), as well as men who were outcasts in the tribal system.D In general, however, emigration, being an almost exclu- sively male phenomenon, has tended to have a rather negative eEect on gender balances: the wives of expatriate workers do indeed beneBt from the increase in household income, but only marginally, as they oMen remain under the tutelage of a male relative.L With emigration, new transnational networks are gradually extending into local social structures, including the tribal system. Although far less studied, migration between Yemen and the Horn of Africa has also contributed signiBcantly to deBning relations C (Carapico <==L, AG-AD). > (Wirth <=LC) G (Manger A?<?). D (Tienda and Booth <==<) L (Myntti <=LC) AGL | .H3I'& 56+"33&% between the Arabian peninsula and the African continent, both through the slave trade and through more conventional forms of commercial exchange. Traces of the strong political, economic, cul- tural and migratory bonds uniting the two shores of the Red Sea can be found embodied in mythical Bgures belonging both to Arab tradition (the popular Queen Bilqis) and Biblical lore (the Queen of Sheba). More prosaic realities also bear witness to the importance and longevity of ties between the Horn of Africa and Yemen, such as the occupation of Yemen by Abyssinians between >AG and >D>, and the reign between <?G? and <<>L of the Banu Najah (descendants of Abyssinian slaves recruited to serve and protect the Ziyadid dynasty).= Political relations were further reinforced by the close economic, cul- tural and social links resulting from Yemeni emigration to Abyssinian lands. Settling in the cities but also on the coastal plains of Abyssinia, Yemenis integrated easily into a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional society, where they worked mainly as tradesmen, entrepreneurs and ship-owners. Until <=DC and their expropriation by the regime of Haile Mariam Mengistu in Ethiopia, Yemeni merchants held the keys to commerce in the Horn of Africa. ;ese transnational ties survive to this day in the oFcial commercial networks, in joint African–Ye- meni Bshing companies, and in organized smuggling between the two shores. It is also visible in Yemen through the presence of a popu- lation of mixed heritage (the muwalladeen) – oEspring of marriages between Yemeni emigrants and Ethiopian, Eritrean, Djiboutian and, more rarely, Somali women.<? Cross-migration experiences ended up forging a speciBc identity for Yemeni expatriates. ;e ethnography of mobility and multicultural families is particularly visible in the bor- der regions of Yemen, such as the Tihama, a coastal area along the Red Sea touching the Saudi border to the north, where generations of expatriates live together in a rural society that is simultaneously mixed and intensely segregated. Contemporary migrations: oil and politics ;e second half of the twentieth century saw the advent of a type of short-range mass mobility that could be referred to as ‘oil emigration’, when Yemen was one of the labour reservoirs for its oil-producing neighbours, particularly Saudi Arabia. ;ese migrations have been extensively studied in analyses that have largely emphasized the = (Ducatez A??C, <D?) <? See Chapter ?? %6& 86-',+', K2'-)+81 "! )+,$-%+"' +' 2&)&' | AG= economic and demographic determinants of importing labour.<< ;e prevailing rate of poverty and relatively high population density in Yemen contrasted with the relative ‘emptiness’ of the rest of the peninsula,<A and a dearth of oil resources has meant that Yemen has remained an economic exception in the region.