International Migration and Human Right Violations

The objective of this research is to provide an account of the causation of the Ethiopian youth emigrants to Gulf countries since 2007/8 onwards in relating to human rights violation. The research has attempted to address the driving forces of emigrants and their perceptions and experiences of emigration and forms of human rights violations. For this purpose, a qualitative method was mainly employed; and to collect primary data, a guided interview was held with thirty-four respondents who were drawn from returnee emigrants, Private Employment Agencies, Ethiopian government and Kuwaiti embassy officials. To select the key informants, purposive and snowball sampling techniques were employed. The finding of this research revealed that culture of migration and wage differences were the major driving forces. Despite reports of repeated violations of human rights, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian youth continue to flood eagerly into Gulf countries every year. Generally, this research strongly argues that although Ethiopian youth emigrants witnessed all forms of violation of human rights, the influx of emigrants to the Gulf countries remains to be a paradox.