Migrating from Pakistan to Greece: Re-Visiting Agency in Times of Crisis

European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 77–100 brill.com/emil

Migrating from Pakistan to Greece: Re-visiting Agency in Times of Crisis

Michaela Maroufof* Hara Kouki ELIAMEP, Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy, Vassilisis Sofias 49, Athens 10676, Greece *Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

This paper focuses on migration from Pakistan to Greece in an attempt to uncover the dynamics of the regulation of irregular migration (and asylum-seeking) in Greece. It examines the factors, policies, and actors that influence the plans, actions, and decisions Pakistanis make before leaving their country and when arriving in Greece. After setting the background against which Pakistanis enter and settle in the country, we trace these migrants’ decision-making process throughout their movement based on a series of qualitative interviews. While a variety of actors and factors are at play in the way people move from the one country to the other, masculinity emerges as the framework within which these come together.

Keywords

Greece – irregular migration – migration – Pakistan

1 Introduction

From mid-2015 onwards, Europe saw a massive increase in migrant and refugee flows from the Middle East and Africa that challenged the ways both academic experts and political actors had dealt with migration. Words such as “borders” or “irregularity” were suddenly irrelevant in the face of the huge wave of people risking their lives as they crossed the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better future on a continent that was itself in acute crisis. The main countries

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi 10.1163/15718166-1234211Downloaded6 from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:21:27PM via free access 78 Maroufof and Kouki for migrant arrivals were on the European Union’s south, largely because they form the EU’s external borders but also due to the inadequate policy responses and labour market structures prevalent in these countries (Triandafyllidou and Maroufof, 2008; Baldwin-Edwards, 2008). At the same time, countries on the EU’s periphery are suffering the most severe recession experienced in post- war Europe which has resulted in the pauperization of large segments of their populations (Eurostat 2012). So what drives people to embark upon a journey that is irregular and unsafe? Migration must be understood as a complex social process that is also shaped by the agency of the migrants. Faced with conflicts and violence back home and control policies and hazards in the destination countries, to what extent do those individuals control their own decisions and destinies? This paper forms part of a broader project that attempts to uncover the dynamics of the governance of irregular migration and asylum seeking in Greece as well as the ways in which different actors and factors affect the nature and direction of the flows within an overall restrictive EU and national (Greek) migration policy regime. The focus is not on the state’s policies, which have already been addressed by much of the existing literature, but on the migrants themselves as central actors in this journey. In tackling this less-examined as- pect, the underlying question posed is how people make sense of their own needs and wishes and how they conceptualize their (legal or irregular) mobility. Within this broader context, this paper focuses on migration from Pakistan to Greece and seeks to identify those factors, policies, and actors influencing Pakistani migrants’ plans, actions, and decisions before leaving their country and when arriving to Greece. With regards to Pakistan, migration as a process is inherently intertwined with its past and present. Approximately four million Pakistanis live outside their country, half in Europe. At the same time, Pakistan has been not only the origin, but also the transit destination of multiple migratory flows. With over 1.6 million people from Afghanistan, the country hosts one of the world’s larg- est refugee populations. This socially-embedded experience of mobility, both within and outside the country’s borders, to a great extent has defined both the composition of Pakistan’s population and how the national culture has been shaped and understood since its establishment (1947). The evolution of migration from Pakistan to European countries over the last decades is paradigmatic in terms of contemporary migration in general: in the early 1950s, large groups of young Pakistani men from peasant communities moved to the UK to work in the construction sector, while in subsequent decades educated middle class Pakistanis moved to the UK, Norway and Denmark. This first phase of legal immigration to Europe, which led to the permanent establishment of rather

European Journal of MigrationDownloaded and Law from 19 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 77–100 05:21:27PM via free access Migrating From Pakistan To Greece 79 homogeneous migrant communities in the countries of destination, was followed by an irregular stage of migratory movement that started in the early 1990s. This shift was produced by a combination of factors concerning movement in the Middle East and Europe, and concerned the migration of the groups in greatest poverty through smuggling networks (Youssef, 2013). In recent years Greece has become a critical pathway for migratory flows to Europe, predominantly involving irregular movements. This is due to its geo- graphic position as well as inadequate policy responses and the existence of large informal labour sectors. In the early 1990s, those movements involved mostly populations from neighbouring Balkan countries, while in the second half of the 2000s the country has witnessed flows transcending both its mari- time borders and its eastern land borders with Turkey. Violence and conflicts in the Middle East as well as wider areas of Africa and Asia have swelled both the migrant and asylum-seeking flows towards Europe in general, and towards Greece in particular, in the last five years (Triandafyllidou, 2015). During those years, Greece became the first developed nation to be downgraded to an emerging economy (MSCI, 2013). Austerity measures have had detrimen- tal consequences for Greeks’ daily lives. Official unemployment rates have skyrocketed and a significant reduction in household incomes was accompanied by extremely poor quality and access to basic social services, while rising inequalities and social exclusion (see OECD, 2014) affect primarily deprived populations such as migrants and asylum seekers. This paper is based upon research conducted during 2013 and 2014 on undocumented Pakistani migrants in Greece. Focusing on individuals migrating irregularly from a country shaped by mobility to a country plagued by austerity, our aim is to explore how the agency of the migrant plays out under those specific structural conditions and restrictions and through interaction with in- termediate actors, such as employers, smugglers, or NGOs, as well as domestic policies and authorities that condition the migrant’s plans and actions.

2 Methodology

Migration literature frequently approaches irregular migrants as objects or vic- tims of migration regimes. It has been criticized for equating migrants with workers, thus downplaying non-economic factors related to the decision to migrate (Anderson and Ruhs, 2010) and overemphasizing the centrality of the household and the importance of social networks in the decision to migrate (Ahmad, 2011). At the same time, and with regards to research on migration in Greece, the focus has been primarily on migratory flows from the Balkans

European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 77–100Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:21:27PM via free access 80 Maroufof and Kouki while overlooking movements from Asia and Africa (Dermentzopoulos et al., 2009). Pakistani migrants in Greece have rarely been the subject of studies,1 while their exclusively male presence in the country has been either over- looked or normalized. Irregular migrants are usually understood as uniform and genderless individuals motivated by rational arguments to improve their own or their family’s financial and material conditions (Ahmad, 2011), and research seems to ignore the complex subjectivity of the individuals deciding to face the risk of irregular migration. This report is an attempt to respond to the above gaps in migration literature that account for the relationship between social structure and human agency (Hatziprokopiou and Triandafyllidou, 2013: 20). Migration, in the context of this report, is understood as a positive choice and not a product of forced imposition (Koser, 2009). The focus is thus on the individual will and subjectivity of the migrant. Departing from Sen (as quoted in Ahmad, 2011: 25), agency refers to the ability of the individual to choose, act and bring about change in a way defined by his or her own aspirations, needs, and values within a specific sociocultural context. Structural limitations, migration control policies, and calculations over well-being, therefore, are not the most important or even sole factors at play: decision-making is enacted as a process and a product of the interplay between individual identities, experiences, and drives in relation to social networks, households, local traditions, and cultural practices. Moreover, in the case of young male Pakistanis who decide to risk their lives to migrate to Greece, masculinity emerges as the predominant dynamic that structures irregular migration. Although knowledge on gender aspects defining migration processes is expanding (Schrover et al., 2008; Boehm, 2012; Schrover and Moloney, 2013), male agency remains an unexplored issue; a brilliant exception is the work of Ahmad on irregular male migrants from Pakistan in Europe (Ahmad, 2008, 2011). This paper focuses on masculinity in order to explore the intersection between economic and cultural factors, sending and receiving societies, and cause and consequence of the irregular migratory experience. The research was divided into two phases. The first phase was initiated with desk research and includes data collection, review of the existing literature, and interviews with stakeholders and authorities in order to set the background based on existing knowledge of irregular migration between Pakistan and Greece. The second, and most important, research phase consisted of fieldwork on the ground and comprised a series of interviews with Pakistani migrants.

1 For an exception, see Dimitriadi (2013).

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In the first phase, 10 interviews were conducted with government officials and other stakeholders such as representatives of NGOs and Pakistani associa- tions in Greece between February and April 2013 (see Table 1). In the second, interviews were conducted with 30 irregular Pakistani immigrants in Greece. These included 10 Pakistani migrants in Greece who had applied for participation in the IOM Assisted Voluntary Return program and five interviews conducted via Skype with Pakistanis who at the time of the interview resided in Pakistan and had considered the option of migrating to Greece or Europe but had decided not to proceed. Castles et al. (2014: 324) define irregular migration as a “vague blanket term” that includes among other categories “legal entrants who overstay their entry visas, illegal border-crossers and asylum seekers not regarded as genuine refugees.” Our sample thus includes 20 undocumented

TABLE 1 List of interviews with authorities and stakeholders in Greece

Interview Stakeholders in Greece Type of Date No. communication

1 Pakistani Community of Interview 14 February 2013 Greece «Unity» 2 Pak-Hellenic Cultural and Interview 18 February 2013 Welfare Society 3 Association of Shia Muslims Interview 3 March 2013 Pakistanis 4 Hellenic Police, Directorate Interview 5 April 2013 of Immigration 5 UNHCR Interview 08 February 2013 6 Greek Council for Refugees Interview via phone 17 February 2013 & E-mail response 7 Hellenic Police, Directorate Interview 11 February 2013 of Immigration, Operations and Coordination Department 8 Hellenic Police, Asylum Interview 11 February 2013 Department, Directorate of Immigration 9 Greek Forum of Migrants Interview 15 February 2013 10 FRONTEX Interview 01 February 2013

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Pakistani migrants, 7 asylum seekers and 13 detainees. As for the demographic characteristics, the sample consisted mainly of young men with ages ranging between 17 and 53 years. As noted above, Pakistani migration to Greece is a strictly male migration with a very scant presence of women and families; in fact, according to the 2011 census, 96% of the 34,000 Pakistanis residing in Greece at the time were male. Finally, an attempt was made to include individuals with different periods of stay in the country, hence the time spent in Greece ranges from one to ten years. All interviews were conducted with the use of a semi-structured ques- tionnaire. The main themes were the decision to migrate, preparation and the travel arrangements, settlement and employment in Greece, and issues related to legal documents and future plans. The interviews took place between September 2013 and September 2014, with the bulk conducted between November 2013 and February 2014. The sample was selected using the “snowball” technique with the exception of the interviews conducted during our two visits to the pre-departure facilities of Amygdaleza, (January and September 2014) and our two visits to the premises of the International Organization for Migration office in Athens (September 2014). The “snowball” technique is often preferred for the research of vulnerable populations as it selects individuals with specific characteristics who, in turn, refer the researcher to other individuals with similar characteristics (Dimitriadi 2013: 222). The interviews took place mostly in Athens, in public places, such as cafes and squares, or in the informants’ homes. In the cases of interviewees recruited at the IOM premises and the Amygdaleza pre-departure facilities, groups of individuals were ap- proached by the researcher, accompanied by the interpreter, and after a brief presentation of the research project were asked to participate on a clearly vol- unteer basis. At the IOM, the interviews were conducted in the public areas outside the IOM building while at Amygdaleza, the detainees who wished to participate were transferred to a private room assigned to us during our visit and none of the guards were present during the interviews. In most cases, interviews were conducted with the assistance of three Pakistani interpreters as the interviews were conducted in Greek and Urdu or Punjabi. An interpreter was also present when the interviewees were confident of their Greek language skills, in which case the interpreter intervened only at points where either the question or the response was not understood properly. The interpreters (only one of whom was trained and certified) were Pakistani migrants with a high level of Greek language skills and known and trusted by their community, which increased the level of trust towards the researcher. However, we must point out that the presence of a third party inevitably does affect the research process, as does the lack of privacy in many cases due to the presence of co-nationals during the interviews.

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Given the nature of this research, challenges posed by the research of undocumented migration (Düvell et al., 2008) have been taken into account both during the fieldwork and in the presentation and dissemination of the findings. Before every interview, we presented a short introduction on the research being conducted, explained that participation was purely voluntary, and sought the interviewees’ consent to conducting the interview as well as recording it, emphasizing the fact that interviews would be anony- mized. In fact, the names assigned to each interviewee for the purposes of this paper are randomly selected nicknames. The very fact that the fieldwork took place during a period of very frequent and strict police controls that could potentially lead to detention prompted us to make every effort to con- duct the interviews in places where the interviewees felt safe. In presenting the results, we have avoided specific details on persons or locations that might jeopardize the anonymity of our respondents or bring attention to specific locations.

3 Pakistani Immigrants in Greece

Entering the country irregularly with the facilitation of human smugglers appears to be the only option available for migrants from Pakistan to Greece. Since 1991, when the first Greek migration law was ratified, the only way for a foreign worker to legally enter the country and acquire a residence permit with the purpose of employment is through the invitation procedure (metaklisi). This, however, is no longer a realistic way of accessing legal status in Greece as it no longer corresponds to the country’s changing labour market and the sectors where immigrants are usually employed. In addition, while there are Greek consular authorities in Pakistan, none of our interviewees mentioned the option of entering Greece on a tourist visa. According to the migrants’ narratives, the irregular journey is arranged in Pakistan and the standard route followed is via Iran and Turkey; only one interviewee had entered Turkey holding a visa and continued his journey from there in an irregular manner. The cost of the journey is very high, ranging between 3000 and 8000 euros, and is agreed beforehand, as Ibrahim notes:

We have decided that [the cost of the journey] since the beginning. From when we start from my home we decide we give that much money until we arrive to Athens. (. . .) We give [an amount] from Turkey, when we arrive, the rest we give from here, when we arrive. Ibrahim, 28 years old

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Raising the necessary funds is not easy: the prospective migrants either sell personal or family belongings or assets such as land parcels, small business- es, houses, or even items such as cars or jewellery, or seek assistance (loans) from their social network, namely family members or friends or close relatives (mainly siblings) who are already abroad able to finance their journey.

Me, I had nothing. I sold a piece of land and for [the amount] that was missing I got a loan from my relatives and I repaid. Naeem, 19 years old

Entering the country in an irregular way has been made even more difficult by the fact that Greek state has intensified its internal and external control policies in an attempt to respond to the persistent arrivals and relevant pres- sures from the EU for tighter border control. Large control operations inside country include sweeps like those conducted under Xenios Zeus, later replaced by Theseus. State authorities also launched operation Aspida aimed at safe- guarding the borders by increasing the number of border guards in the broader Evros region and building a 12.5-kilometer-long fence along the Evros border (Triandafyllidou et al., 2014a). Even though since the 1970s Greece has received small numbers of immigrants from Pakistan who work mainly in the shipping industry, it was during the 1990s and 2000s that Greece gradually became a destination country for Pakistani migrants (Lazarescu and Broersma, 2010). According to the 2011 census, over 34 000 Pakistanis reside in Greece, while their numbers started increasing sharply after 2007.2 The gender imbalance is striking: according to the 2011 census, 96% of the Pakistanis living in Greece were men. The vast majority (75%) belongs to the most active age groups, between 20 and 39 years, while over 80% have an education that is lower than upper secondary. Yet since 2012, the numbers of Pakistani migrants have dwindled; aside from a clear trend of returning to their country of origin, migratory influxes have been decreasing dramatically too.3 Based on the 2011 census data, the main sectors in which Pakistani migrants are employed are agriculture, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, re- pair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, and construction. Migrants are thus mainly occupied as manual labourers, accepting jobs of little interest to Greeks as these involve harsh working conditions such as long hours, low earnings, and social and physical isolation (Leghari, 2009). While measures can be taken

2 According to the Labour Force Survey, see Graph 4. 3 This was the case at the time of our research; however, based on recent UNHCR data, Pakistanis account for four% of the arrivals by sea for 2016 at the time of writing.

European Journal of MigrationDownloaded and Law from 19 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 77–100 05:21:27PM via free access Migrating From Pakistan To Greece 85 against irregular migration at the policy level, “as long as labour markets con- tinue to generate a demand for migrant workers, the effectiveness of such controls seems to be limited” (Castles et al., 2014: 325). Greece’s recession seems to be reversing this. According to the data of the most recent census in 2011, 30% of the Pakistanis residing in Greece were unemployed while many of the newcomers work as street vendors (Youssef, 2013): in fact, a surprisingly large proportion of the migrants interviewed were unemployed at the time of the interview, while others were only working occasionally as day labourers,4 street vendors, or scrap metal collectors, often earning no more than five euros a day. Parallel to the shrinking of the Greek labour market, control measures have intensified with the aim of controlling irregular migration not only at the borders, but also within the country. Police checks on the street have long been used as a deterrent measure in large urban areas, but such controls are now being exercised far more frequently in small towns as well. Pre-departure detention centres have been set up and the maximum detention time of undocumented migrants extended to 18 months (Triandafyllidou et al., 2014a), whereas before the extension, an apprehended undocumented third-country national would be released within days or maybe hours, placement in pre- departure detention facilities for those who were considered removable has become the norm.

I have [been] caught many times [by] the police, they let me go . . .[They kept me for] two-three hours, then [they told me to] leave . . . Now they catch [people], if they catch you now 16 months is in [detention]. A year ago they caught me every day and let [me] go. Now they haven’t caught me. Bilal, 17 years old

At the same time, undocumented migrants do not have a way of acquiring a regular status. Greece implemented a series of regularisation programs between 1998 and 2005, but the majority of our interviewees entered the country after 2005 and did not benefit from these. According to their accounts, apply- ing for asylum has been one of the main alternative strategies used to acquire a legal status within the country, even if for a short period. In fact, in late 2013, when the new Asylum Service started operating, over 14 000 asylum requests by Pakistani migrants were pending (Table 2). The asylum system in place before then was highly bureaucratic and hugely problematic (HRW, 2008):

4 Even working up to 10 days per months doing any job they can find (either through their networks or by frequenting specific places where employers pick up day labourers) earns barely enough to cover basic living expenses.

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TABLE 2 Pakistani citizens apprehended and deported (2009–2014)

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Apprehensions 4854 8830 19975 11136 3982 3269 Deportations* 245 405 1293 5135 4833 3287

Source: Hellenic Police. These tables include third-country nationals forcibly deported (except for repatriations) and voluntary returns (executed by IOM and the Greek police). * include third-country nationals forcibly deported (except for repatriations) and voluntary returns (executed by IOM and the Greek police).

Zahoor applied for asylum in 2007 after queuing for many hours outside the headquarters of the Alien Police Division in Athens and even though he was accepted and interviewed by the authorities, he was given a temporary permit that he keeps renewing; his application had not been examined by the time of our interview. Even if Pakistani migrants have strategically and consistently employed the process of asylum application as a temporary solution enabling them to cir- culate freely within the country, still many of our interviewees have not even managed to acquire the so-called pink card due to the insurmountable difficul- ties entailed in the procedure that must be followed (Figs 1 and 2).

I have been many times, I have tried to issue papers but then it had too many people and I couldn’t issue, every day they were taking 20 persons, 40 persons, and thousands of persons were gathering there. That’s why I couldn’t issue. And then they had no law. They don’t give, and still they don’t give a pink card. Those who have taken, all right, every six months they go, they renew, new ones don’t take now. Sameer, 30 years old

Overall, based on our interviews, the reasons Pakistani migrants do not appear as having a strong presence in the migratory inflows of the past few years seem to be linked more to the change in the labour market conditions and the extension of the detention period of irregular migrants than to the intensification of border controls and the tightening of migration control policies. After an expensive and extremely hazardous journey to Greece, irregular migrants and asylum seekers arrive in the country only to be faced with an ambivalent environment where tolerance towards informal work exists

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18000 16000 14000 12000 Studies 10000 Family 8000 Other 6000 Employment 4000 2000 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 FIGURE 1 Residence permits in force on 31 December of each year of Pakistani citizens by type (2005–2013). Source: Ministry of Interior Affairs.

10000 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014* FIGURE 2 Asylum applications by Pakistani citizens in Greece (2005–2014). The data for 2014 refer to the period between 1 January 2014 and 31 August 2014 and are available at the website of the Ministry of Citizen Protection. Source: UNHCR Population Statistics. (http://popstats.unhcr.org/) and Ministry of Citizen Protection (http:// www.yptp.gr/images/stories//2014/asylo/13092014GreekAsylumServiceStatistical Data_Jan14-August14_gr.pdf ).

European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 77–100Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:21:27PM via free access 88 Maroufof and Kouki alongside a tough border control policy, intensified controls and expulsions, and a malfunctioning asylum system. To complement the picture, dense networks of smugglers operate particularly across Turkey, while opportunities for migrants in the labour market have shrunk dramatically — something now being communicated through social networks to those taking the decision to move towards southern Europe. So, why and how do people take the decision to embark upon this journey that entails mortal risks and barely guarantees welcoming life prospects? In the next section we will shed some light on the decision-making process followed by migrants throughout their movement.

4 Masculinity, Agency and Irregular Migration

4.1 The Decision to Migrate to Greece Based on findings from our fieldwork, while Greece is mainly seen as the pathway to Europe for most populations arriving from Asia and Africa, such as Afghans (Dimitriadi, 2013), it is the initial destination for a large group of Pakistani migrants. According to Leghari (2009), after being an area of transit migration for Pakistanis, Greece became a new destination country for reasons linked to the tighter control policies in northwestern Europe, the centrality of its geographical position, its economic development, and the possibility of acquiring a residence permit through the regularization programs from 1998 to 2005. But these reasons do not cover migrants’ decisions to migrate to Greece in the last few years. Below we attempt to reconstruct the decision-making process followed in their country of origin by accounting for a variety of different factors, contexts and actors. The most obvious reason seems to be to seek work because of economic hardship prevalent in their home country: in terms of Lee’s “push-pull theory” (Lee, 1966) the main push factors include unemployment and low wages, lack of a sense of security, and poor living conditions, while the key pull factors attracting migrants to Europe in general and Greece in particular are the availability of jobs, better working conditions, and better living standards (see also Farooq et al., 2014). Within the same rationale, neoclassical economic approaches view migration and return migration as a “cost-benefit decision” with the maximum expected lifetime earnings set as goal. In this context, a decision to invest in migration is very much like investing in education as it is expected to lead to additional lifetime earnings (Castles et al., 2014: 29–30). However, viewing Pakistani migration as strictly labour migration does not take into account, for instance, environmental factors, as well as conflicts related to local

European Journal of MigrationDownloaded and Law from 19 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 77–100 05:21:27PM via free access Migrating From Pakistan To Greece 89 contexts and traditions (Dimitriadi, 2013). Seven of the persons interviewed in Greece left Pakistan because they felt that their life was in danger; in most cases the threat appeared to be linked to family vendettas.

I have a problem, I married, how is it called? Love marriage and for that reason I have a serious problem, they killed my wife5 and I left from there . . . I did not think of anything, I thought they killed my wife, they might also kill me and to get out of here. To leave from here and then I see where I go. Hamza, 27 years old

Literature also attributes a primary role to kinship and the household, which are frequently considered as the most powerful driving forces of international migration from the developing world (Becker, 1976; Agarwal, 1997). The New Economics of Labour Migration (NELM) regards migrants as “target earners” who leave the host country as soon as they meet the economic goals they have set: in this context, migration decisions are usually made by households. This approach views migration as “a risk-sharing behaviour of families, as migrants’ remittances provide income insurance for households of origin” (Castles et al., 2014: 38). The case of migration from Pakistan and south Asia to Europe, and the UK in particular, often serve — especially in anthropology literature — as an eloquent example of this trend emphasizing the centrality of the family and the clan. Our fieldwork confirms this: 11 of our interviewees explicitly stated that they reached the decision to leave the country and undertake the journey to Greece after consulting with or being urged by their families.6 In all of these cases, “family” referred to their parents and siblings who were in need of their support, with the burden of providing for the family usually weighing on the oldest son or the oldest single son. A gradually increasing, if not predominant, role in generating migration is also attributed to social networks by facilitating the sharing of information on labour market opportunities and conditioning the migration process (Castles and Miller, 2009). As Arango notes, “the importance of social networks for migration can hardly be overstated” (Arango, 2004: 28). Amplifying this, Foner claims that migration itself can be conceptualised as a process of

5 His wife was murdered by her own family because she married without their permission. 6 This does not mean that their families’ wellbeing was not an important determining factor for the other interviewees judging by their remitting behaviour, yet 11 interviewees specifi- cally pointed to their family as describing the decision process.

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“network-building” and that having a close family member or a close friend in the country determines the choice of the destination (Foner, 2001: 3–4). Almost all our interviewees explain that choosing Greece as their country of destination resulted mainly from the existence of networks from which they either drew information from or thought they could depend on upon their arrival. Recently, literature seems to attribute a crucial role to the smuggling network. Apart from noticing the growing professionalization and marketiza- tion of the migrant smuggling process (Triandafyllidou and Maroukis, 2012), research also examines the complicated role that the smuggler plays in the migratory project. Ahmad notes that smuggling “grew organically” as “a two- way exchange of commodities, people and information” initiated by “UK returnees who brought goods with them and then actively spread the word and recruited individuals and groups of men to be transported overland [il- legally] to the UK for payment of a fee” (Ahmad, 2008: 137). Throughout the interviews, the smuggler appears as highly influential in the decision-making process with a multi-faceted role. By facilitating individuals to overcome obstacles that result directly from restrictive asylum or immigration measures, the smuggler’s role is complementary to and intertwined with state control policies; migrants remain dependent economically and in terms of information and networking on the smuggler. Some of our interviewees were recruited directly by smugglers who convinced them that there would be a good work opportunities waiting for them in the destination country — a reassurance that in all cases turned out to be largely untrue. In many cases, however, the interviewees appear to have developed relations of trust with the smuggler that resemble those examined above concerning kinship or social networks. In order to underline the role played by the smuggler, it should be noted that the vast majority of our interviewees come from Gujrat district, where the rates of human smuggling to the West are considered the highest in the entire country (Ahmad, 2008: 137). The majority of our interviewees did in fact decide to migrate for economic purposes — either due to lack of employment or due to the low wages in Pakistan — and after consulting with their families; however, their main expectations were not restricted to mere survival for themselves and their families.

We were three friends from the village, at night we sat there for company and we spoke of going to Greece. We may have a better life, to gather some money, to build some houses, what it is to make a better life. And we came. Babar, 33 years old

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Without downplaying the roles played by social networks and kinship, the household cannot be understood as an unproblematic and closed unit that allocates labour, pools income and distributes it among its members (Ahmad, 2008: 133); in the same way, human experience cannot be compartmentalized and risk-entailing decisions, such as the migratory one, cannot be attributed to economic reasons, as is the case in mainstream migration theories.

Sameer: I had normally both a job and money but I wanted to go to Europe. That’s why I left. Interviewer: So you wanted to see something . . . Sameer: . . . Something new! Sameer, 30 years old

What emerges from the interviews is what Ahmad observes, that migration “more than ever holds the imagined promise of material and experiential nov- elty to Pakistani youth, despite the fact that, in objective terms, it offers fewer obviously identifiable rewards than it did in say, the 1970s” (Ahmad, 2008).

I had a job, I made money but not that much money was circulating in my home, I came here to make more. Because it has value. That’s why I came here. Hammad, 30 years old

Sometimes this risk is not taken to improve household income and living standards, but instead family resources are used to travel, consume, and experience life differently on a personal basis.

I see dreams, much money and a car and a good beautiful life . . . There [in Europe] good life. To gather money quickly and to build a house, to get a car, stuff like that . . . I wasn’t thinking of anything [specific] only that was on my mind: I will go to Europe, I will live better. Usman, 28 years old

When considering the reasons male Pakistanis migrate to Greece, economic reasons cannot easily be separated from the construction of social and gender identities in a country where national culture and hegemonic masculinities have been defined by the migratory process. Hammad’s response, when asked whether his friends back in Pakistan have ever asked him about the situation in Greece, illustrates how deeply ingrained the migratory process is in society:

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My friends in Pakistan have gone to Dubai and ahead.7 In Pakistan there is no one left to ask me. Hammad, 30 years old

Departing from the above, it should be taken into account that Pakistani men grow up in a country where transnational experiences of migration are a socially-embedded and widely-shared normality: their fathers, brothers, friends, or neighbours have lived or are living and working abroad.

He says it is too many [reasons], it is not just the money. It is also how the people think over there because those countries are more ahead and have another thought; that is to say, it is not the same. He also wanted to know that. Obaid, 29 years old

Migration is like a “rite of passage,” a pathway to a more economically and socially independent lifestyle (Laruelle, 2013: 212) in various cultural contexts: Gardner argues that young men from Sylhet in Bangladesh are willing to migrate to Britain to find work in Indian restaurants partly because “movement abroad is linked to the construction of an active, adult malehood” (Gardner, 2009). In the same vein, Punch (2007) notes that young Bolivians leave to work in Argentina partly to pursue the enhanced status of a migrant identity. Or, in the case of Afghans, migration can be understood as a necessary phase in their life course, “a rite of passage to adulthood and a step toward manhood” (Monsutti, 2007). For Pakistani men it can be seen as a necessary stage during which they accumulate the money, freedom, and status required to return, marry, and thus experience a masculine identity (Ahmad, 2008). This expecta- tion is highlighted by Awais, who admitted to having stopped sending remittances back to his family after he started dating a girl in Greece:

Generally, I don’t want to get married yet . . . I will stay here until I am 45, 40 to 50 years old, and until then I will not get married and then, if I go to my homeland [I’ll get married]. Awais, 25 years old

Razzaq, who worked in agriculture in Greece for seven years and at the time of our interview had just applied for return to Pakistan through the IOM Assisted voluntary return program, explained that he made the decision after achieving

7 The word “ahead” (μπροστά) was used by many respondents in reference to other European countries.

European Journal of MigrationDownloaded and Law from 19 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 77–100 05:21:27PM via free access Migrating From Pakistan To Greece 93 his aim by sending money to his family and thus accumulating a substantial amount of money:

I have worked very much and now we don’t have jobs, I will leave to get married. [Upon my return to Pakistan] I will do the same job, in the fields. I didn’t have any problem in Greece. I had a good time. Razzaq, 32 years old

Economic insecurity in Pakistan, the role of the household and kinship, social networks, and the smuggling industry are indeed crucial aspects in the decision- making process that leads to migration. Yet all these factors remain fragmented and do not make sense unless linked and framed against the construction of masculinity in Pakistan. As Ahmad notes, the entire migratory experience is accumulated from social networks, smuggling industries, control policies, and irregular paths: “Only rarely is it mentioned that various kinds of migration networks are predominantly or exclusively made up from men” (Ahmad, 2008: 129). Agency in the decision to leave the country is revealed when the migratory experience is understood as a rite of passage and a privilege of those Pakistani men who can afford it; migration can be related to money, family, or the smuggler, but it can also be “an end in itself” (Ahmad, 2008: 141).

4.2 The Decision to Stay, Return, or Migrate On The conditions encountered in the country of destination are thus evaluated within a worldview according to which migration means much more than economic survival or betterment. In this context, the decision to return or be deported, even if at first glance seems an inevitable solution to mounting problems, emerges as a complicated option. When asked about their future plans, interviewees spoke, on the one hand, about returning back or moving to another European country and, on the other, about remaining in Greece despite the adversities encountered. The main constraint is economic — either the additional money that needs to be invested in the case of re-migration or the money already invested in the case of returning. As expected, rising unemployment in Greece since the recession, combined with the control policy of detention, has led many migrants to reconsider their options such as possible migration to other European countries or a return to Pakistan.

I’m thinking to leave from here, and then I will see what to do over there [in Pakistan]. Since I left so as to find job, because there [in Pakistan], there are none, and here I found even worse. I will go back and see what I will do. Shahid, 23 years old

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Moreover, in the case of Pakistani migrants, the extension of the detention period to 18 months appears to have achieved its purpose, as both an internal and an external immigration policy (Hatziprokopiou and Triandafyllidou, 2013) in tandem with the intensification of controls within the country. Four of our interviewees who have applied for return using the IOM Assisted Voluntary Return program were being detained in Amygdaleza when they decided to return; signing up for a voluntary return program seemed like the only viable option, as detention meant that they would not be able to work and thus send remittances to their families or earn a living themselves for an unknown period that could span several months. As Sufian explains:

It is hard for me there [in Pakistan] and if they will let me free over here I will go to work . . . in here I cannot do anything for my family, for my wife, for my children, [it’s] better to leave, here I will stay 18 months, 2 years, I don’t know how long they will keep me in. [It’s] better to make the application and go back, to be next to my wife, to my children, to my family. Sufian, 30 years old

The fact that the detention measure appears to have achieved its purpose, at least as far as Pakistani migration is concerned, does not, however, render it successful. According to Triandafyllidou et al. (2014b) this policy, as adopted and implemented by the Greek state, cannot be considered effective and sus- tainable as it is not legally viable, entails a heavily-charged political burden while involving a high financial investment, and leads to outcomes that are, in most cases, uncertain. At the same time, we should not fail to notice that fieldwork took place at a time when anti-migrant rhetoric and racist violence were on the rise in Greece. Even if respondents did not explicitly refer to this, racism’s mainstreaming did emerge as the backdrop against which decisions about movement had been taken.8 A few interviewees were considering the possibility of migrating to another European country to gain access to employment opportunities and a regular status.

8 In early 2013, a young Pakistani national, Shehzad Luqman, was murdered allegedly due to racist motivations. A few months later, a member of the far-right Golden Dawn party was charged with the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, a Greek anti-fascist musician: many interviewees lamented the fact that it took the murder of a Greek for police and justice to finally react to the far-right violence.

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I’m thinking, if I find a better job I will work here, otherwise I will leave to another place . . . If I don’t find a better job to go Italy, Germany, towards there, not back. Sameer, 30 years old

The countries usually mentioned are Italy, Spain and Germany, while the information respondents have on these destinations is once again surprisingly partial, outdated, or false. What appears to be the main obstacle in embarking on such an endeavour is the financial expense it entails, which is in the region of 2000 euros. What is interesting when trying to decipher the decision-making processes followed by irregular migrants is not why some of our interviewees might wish to return, but why some of them choose not to return — even when detained. For some, returning is simply not an option, as they either believe their life would be in danger back in Pakistan or they have not been able to earn the money invested in their migration venture. According to his own narrative, after having worked for two years in low-paying jobs in Pakistan, Naeem came to Greece when he was 17 years old to help his family financially. In order to raise the 6000 euros of the smuggler’s fee for the journey to Greece, Naeem’s family sold a piece of land and borrowed money from relatives. He was apprehended soon after his arrival in Greece. When asked whether he has considered returning, he responded:

Since I took borrowed [money] to pay to come here, how will I pay [it back] if I go back? I have to get out here, to work, to pay the debts that I have and then [I can go back]. Naeem, 19 years old

The same rationale is often offered by respondents who are not detained but have been unable to find work for long periods of time. The enormous financial burden associated with the decision to go back notwithstanding, one has to understand this frame of mind within the historical, social, cultural, and political context of Pakistan, where the decision to migrate was made. The process of migration has a specific social and economic value inherently related to young men’s passage from childhood to adulthood. Seen this way, the act of returning earlier than planned, especially by being deported or returned through state programs, in many cases is not an option even if it seems as the only viable or available choice when faced with a non-manageable stay in the country or even prolonged detention. On the one hand, the factors that may have caused the original migration — whether fear of persecution, poverty, insecurity, lack of employment, or to seek opportunities for a better life — are

European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 77–100Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:21:27PM via free access 96 Maroufof and Kouki still there. Returning may also seem like a personal failure and lead to stigma- tization, resulting perhaps from family commitments or debt (Schuster and Majidi, 2015). Autonomy, gender, and adulthood are interrelated with the financial wellbeing of the household, the lack of survival opportunities at home, and the need to go abroad: the reasons that influence the decision-making cannot easily be classified as “economic” versus “cultural” or “collective” versus “individual.” Analyses of irregular migration should allow for a combination of levels, factors, and contexts that take into also account what it means for male individuals in Pakistan to experience this highly risky mobility when they make the passage from their childhood to being male adults.

5 Conclusions

Even if it is seldom stated explicitly, in most cases literature treats migration as the outcome of rational and conscious strategies that aim at maximizing the gains of the individual and the household to which he or she belongs, while at the same time minimizing the risks inherent in the process. Those narratives have been often criticized on the grounds that they overlook cultural factors and reduce the determinants of migration to economic reasons while treating sending societies as if they were homogeneous, static, and “in the lack of” what the destination countries cherish (Monsutti, 2007). Interpretative frameworks such as the “push-pull” theory that draw on rational choice argumentation to explain individuals’ decisions to migrate have been challenged since the 1960s by other broader and multi-level analyses like the “world systems theory” (Arango, 2000). Return migration seen as either success or failure has also been problematized in recent literature (de Haas et al., 2015). Yet economic re- ductionism remains the inevitable background against which motivations are examined — not only in terms of public understandings but also in academic literature, including those cases where socio-cultural factors are taken into account (Ahmad, 2008: 129). It is within this context that Pakistani migration to Greece during the last few years leaves open as many questions as it answers. Understanding the decision-making process that leads individuals from Pakistan to embark upon such an almost irrational project is complicated. To begin with, this involves spending a sum of cash that is most probably greater than the annual household income. At the same time, the role and demands of the smuggler are not contested or criticized; on the contrary, they are taken for granted. This is also the case for the “irregularity” embedded in the very process of migrating which obliges individuals to risk their lives in order to arrive at their destination — a trip that may last for many months or even years. At the same time,

European Journal of MigrationDownloaded and Law from 19 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 77–100 05:21:27PM via free access Migrating From Pakistan To Greece 97 interviewees appear surprisingly ignorant of the above complexities and hard- ships; this lack of information, however, does not seem important enough to challenge the social or smuggling networks through which the journey was arranged. Almost all interviewees encountered huge obstacles in simply surviv- ing, much less in meeting their expectations of remittances they could send their families in Pakistan or improving their material condition. Still, it is sur- prising that many of them do not articulate an explicit desire to return. This irrationality might be due to our misplaced predisposition when trying to understand ‘why’ someone migrates from Pakistan to Greece rather than with the decision-making process followed by the migrants. In every case, it is implied that leaving home cannot but be the ultimate solution to unresolved problems. This is consistent with mainstream accounts of economic history examining developing societies or communities of the poor and how they survive (Ahmad, 2008: 134). But this is too simplistic: impulses to migrate are often generated in spaces broader than or even beyond the mere economy of the household and in relation to given localities, gender norms, social values, and historical traditions. The decision to migrate is the product of a multiplic- ity of reasons, more or less rational, calculated and contingent. That is why throughout the interviews, the distinction between legal or illegal migration is fluid and changeable and certainly not determining — and why migration can seldom be explained according to one clear-cut category, such as labour migration. A variety of actors and factors are at play in the way individuals move irregularly from Pakistan to Greece; poor living conditions and unemployment can be combined with insecurity and fear of persecution, intertwined with family desires or social values, or even measured against individual impulses. Masculinity emerges as the frame against which these separate factors come together to make sense, attributing subjectivity and agency to the individuals interviewed when deciding to begin their journey.

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