Abstract

"‘Disguised’ assisted migration: international organisations and human mobility from Europe to overseas in the 1950s"

Ioannis Limnios Sekeris, Panteion University (limniosg@gmail.com)

In 1951 a new international organisation, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), was established and was mandated to manage migration from Europe and transport migrants to overseas countries of the West. Within the context of the United States’ Cold War development policies, the migrants transferred by ICEM were expected to be transformed from a ‘surplus population’ into a valuable labour force after landing in overseas countries. They would increase production, and foster development rates in the West through their labour, reducing financial costs for the states and ensuring profits for the private sector, while preventing communist influence in Europe. In 1952-80, ICEM transferred about 2.5 million migrants and refugees.

As a product of the capitalist system, ICEM adopted the financial and business practices it incorporated, as an enterprise would. Therefore, ICEM instigated competition between its business partners, it targeted cost reduction for the funds it managed and profit maximisation for itself and the companies with which it cooperated (more than half a billion dollars were paid to transport companies), while it strove to prove its efficiency and the necessity of its existence to its member states.

The presentation will base its analysis on the cases of migrant labour on board military vessels (MSTS) converted for passenger traffic and an ‘indenture’ mining migration scheme in South Africa. It will be shown that the migration industry established by ICEM ‘imposed’ foremost the satisfaction of its business partners (states and companies), rather than the best interest of the labour-migrants under its auspices. ICEM will be approached as a business entity, a state-led organisation, trying to prove its necessity for managing international migration, even at the expense of migrants’ well-being.

The presentation will be supported by archival records collected from the archive of the International Organisation for Migration in Switzerland, and national archives from the USA, Australia, and Greece.