27/12/2025
Youth, Unemployment, and the Backway Phenomenon, A Lost Generation in Waiting. Is the backway migration by sea an enforced su***de engineered by acute government failures and youth marginalisation?
Salifu Manneh, Saturday, 27/12/2025.
As we mourn the deaths of 190 Gambian souls at sea our hearts go to their families and loved ones, but why is our government silent over the issue? Youthful age is a very critical moment in one’s development. Full of ambition. Set some goals to achieve now and later. What the future holds for any of our young people is difficult to predict.
By taking to the boats and sea and by taking young women and children with them our youths are without any doubt at all engaged in a su***de mission enforced by government failures and lack of empathy and compassion from the people at the top. Look at the social background of the young people whose hopelessness and helplessness in our country are driving them to evacuate from the Gambia, driven out of the country by an intolerable period of Governance. The motivation to embark upon a su***de mission in the seas despite the serious nature of the dangers involved amongst our young people is growing all the time. Could the son or daughter of a senior civil servant, Minister or permanent Secretary take the backway route? No. The seas are treacherous. No where to cling on to in the event of a capsize.
These boats are meant for fishing but not for trawling people out to sea to die a very horrific death. In the dark and in rough seas. The waves are coming to get you, and you can see how unfriendly they are, "crashing," "roaring," and "rumbling" during storms. The boat continues to sail on a knife edge. Can you hear them crying, can you see their faces in distress and in agony, observe their breathing stop suddenly, can you hear the children in the crowd shouting Mummy, Daddy, come and get me out of here, I am going to die. Can you imagine the pandemonium that fills the air on these boats when everyone on the boat knows their time is up and the boat and all those onboard have been struck with a catastrophic blow that is bent on not sparing a single life on board. A captain-less boat drifting on the sea waters with no direction and heading towards no man’s land. The whole mission is perilous. We must act now to stop this preventable loss of human life. The dream to step on Spanish, Italian, French or German shores is fading rapidly. The struggle has now reached a life-or-death situation. Your cries are not being heard. You cried and cried until you can no longer cry. With everyone now trying to fend for themselves, their lives are now in the hands of the Almighty God. Everyone who is not emotionally charged may be able to remember their little prayers. It is a daunting nightmare. The traumatic experiences are phenomenal and overwhelming. Without any rescue at sight time to say bye, bye to this cruel world that has made you be born in the Gambia but die at sea hundreds of miles away. Nearly 2000 people from the Gambia have died at sea in 2025 only. According to IOM, their demographics are often difficult to ascertain. Surely, we are abdicating from our social responsibilities if we fail to act now, and I mean NOW.
The youth of any nation are its most asset, its builders, innovators, and custodians of the future. In The Gambia, young people under the age of thirty-five constitute the majority of the population. Yet, rather than being empowered as a demographic dividend, they have become the most visible casualties of governance failure. Between 2017 and 2025, youth unemployment has deepened, opportunity has narrowed, and despair has become normalised. Slash the President’s annual income by 50%, slash state house annual koparr ndawal by 50%, ground all government vehicles for one year, terminate all foreign travel, close 50% of all the Gambia embassies, no meet the peoples’ tour for two good years and inject the savings into youth enterprise and apprenticeships, you could make an impact on youth unemployment. Youth marginalization from everything Gambian is an acute, but chronic social problem. Successive governments have failed to lift the spirits of our young people by creating new jobs, enhancing youth skills and take bold steps towards full employment for all the young people in our country.
The youths despite being the cream of our population are not being given their rights to employment, housing, improved quality of life and a voice with a difference.
Unemployment, Underemployment, and Economic Exclusion.
Official statistics underestimate the scale of youth unemployment. Many young people survive in the informal economy, street vending, casual labour, subsistence farming, or seasonal migration, without security, progression, or dignity. Even those with secondary or tertiary education struggle to find work, revealing a deep mismatch between education and the labour market. The quality of education, curriculum and academic positioning does not prepare our young people for the job market. Our young people do not have access to skills training opportunities. The skills gap in our economy is huge. The building trade, civil engineering, demand for electricians, plumbing, nurses, doctors, mechanical engineering, sewing, tailoring and other trades are mostly performed by foreigners from Senegal, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast.
Government rhetoric on job creation has not translated into structural change. Key productive sectors, agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing, and technology, remain underdeveloped. Industrial policy is weak, and private sector growth is constrained by corruption, high costs, and poor infrastructure. For many young Gambians, effort no longer guarantees reward. Unemployment, in this context, is not merely economic, it is psychological and political. It communicates exclusion and erodes self-worth. Over time, it pushes young people to seek alternatives beyond national borders.
The Backway: Desperation as Strategy.
I am a migrant. You are a migrant. We are all migrants. Our journeys from our original homes to where we are today are different. Our traumatic experiences may be different but the driving force that propelled our abandoning home in search of greener pastures may be the same. In search of jobs. Money and a better quality of life for ourselves and for our families.
Irregular migration, commonly referred to as the “backway,” has become the most visible expression of youth despair. Despite awareness campaigns highlighting the dangers of deserts, detention centres, and the Mediterranean Sea, young Gambians continue to leave in significant numbers.
This persistence is not driven by ignorance. Young people are well aware of the risks. What drives them is the calculation that staying offers no future, while leaving, however dangerous, offers at least the possibility of survival, income, and dignity.
When boats continue to sail despite repeated tragedies, the problem is no longer one of awareness. It reflects structural hopelessness.
The State, Youth Welfare, and the Politics of Abandonment.
The repeated loss of young Gambian lives at sea demands a fundamental reckoning with responsibility. When hundreds of young men and women perish while attempting irregular migration, the issue is no longer one of individual choice or parental failure; it becomes a question of state obligation, governance failure, and political neglect.
At its core lies an uncomfortable truth: the primary responsibility for the welfare of young people rests with the state. This responsibility is constitutional, moral, and practical. Governments exist to safeguard both present and future generations. When the future generation chooses death over life at home, the social contract has collapsed.
Large-scale migration operations do not happen spontaneously. They require organisation, recruitment, financing, and logistics. The repeated ability of smugglers to mobilise young people and launch vessels from Gambian shores without effective intervention exposes serious weaknesses in intelligence, surveillance, and preventative governance.
More critically, it exposes a deeper failure: the state has not provided young people with a compelling reason to stay.
Communities: Moral Responsibility Without Structural Power.
Families, communities, religious leaders, and civil society organisations play important roles in guiding and supporting young people. They can discourage dangerous narratives, mentor youth, and support returnees. However, their capacity is limited.
Communities cannot create jobs where none exist. They cannot reform national education systems, regulate labour markets, or dismantle corruption networks. Asking impoverished families to prevent youth migration without providing alternatives is unrealistic and unjust. Community responsibility must therefore complement state action, not replace it.
When the state withdraws, communities are overwhelmed.
Youth Development Policy: A Framework Without Rescue.
Successive governments have responded to youth frustration with policy documents branded as Youth Development Plans. These frameworks are rich in language, empowerment, innovation, entrepreneurship, but poor in outcomes. “In 2017, the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) was launched to contribute to the economic development of the Gambia by improving the employability of the youth population, especially potential and returning migrants”. We are yet to see what impact this expensive and unclear empowerment project is having on the youth situation these days. During his tenure, how many new jobs has this government created for young people? What is the rate of urban migration amongst young people in the Gambia? What happens to the young people who have dropped out of school, are not in any informal/formal skills training? How many young people have developed mental illness, depression, anxiety, psychosis and are not receiving treatment? What psychological support is offered to young people who are deported back to the Gambia after spending their family’s little savings based on the hope that the illegal migration via the back way would succeed or not.
Their failures are systemic.
First, there is no direct link between training and employment. Young people are trained for jobs that do not exist in an economy incapable of absorbing labour.
Second, elite capture dominates youth programmes. Grants, opportunities, and overseas schemes disproportionately benefit politically connected urban youth, excluding rural and marginalised communities.
Third, there is no emergency response proportionate to the scale of youth deaths. Despite repeated migration tragedies, the state has failed to declare youth migration a national emergency or mobilise resources accordingly.
Fourth, youth participation remains symbolic. Young people are invited to consultations but excluded from decision-making structures where budgets and priorities are set.
Finally, there is no accountability. Youth development plans contain no enforceable targets linked to employment, reduced migration, or youth survival. When they fail, no official is held responsible.
As a result, youth policy manages frustration rather than resolving it. It produces reports, workshops, and slogans—but not futures.
Irregular Migration as Political Testimony.
Irregular migration should be understood as political testimony. Young people are expressing, without slogans or protests, that they no longer believe the state works for them. The decision to risk death is not recklessness; it is the outcome of exclusion, humiliation, and broken promises. In this sense, migration is a silent referendum on governance failure.
What an Immediate Response Requires.
Ending this catastrophic trend requires abandoning rhetoric and confronting reality. Youth deaths must be treated as a national emergency, not a public relations issue.
The state must:
• redirect resources from excessive governance spending to labour-intensive youth employment,
• establish paid national apprenticeships and public works programmes in agriculture, infrastructure, fisheries, and environmental management,
• dismantle smuggling networks through intelligence-led and accountable policing,
• publish transparent data on youth employment, migration, and reintegration outcomes,
• and embed youth welfare as a measurable national priority.
Communities must support reintegration without stigma, challenge glorified migration narratives, and demand accountability from leaders at all levels.
Conclusion: A Generation Signalling Distress.
The repeated loss of young lives at sea is not a natural disaster. It is the outcome of policy choices, leadership failures, and moral abdication. Youth welfare is not a secondary issue, it is the clearest measure of whether a democratic transition has succeeded or failed.
In The Gambia, the verdict is stark: a generation is voting with its feet, and paying with its lives. If you were to conduct a survey amongst a good sample of young people representing the whole country, the answers and response they give would make a good starting point in understanding what young people want and what could inform policy, strategy and focus for bringing about some meaningful change in the lives of young people.
Until governance offers dignity instead of delay, opportunity instead of promises, and action instead of plans, the boats will continue to sail. And mourning will continue to replace policy.
Editors Note: Views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Skypower Radio and TV Services. You have an opinion article or if you know is happening, has happened or about to happen get in touch with Skypower.
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 07898011298
