New Delhi (NVI): The world is becoming less tolerant of migrants, according to a latest poll as Europe prepared to unveil a new asylum plan in the wake of a blaze at an overcrowded camp in Greece that left thousands without shelter.
Overall, the world is slightly less accepting of migrants today than it was three years ago, according to Gallup’s latest update of its Migrant Acceptance Index.
Seven European countries, led by North Macedonia, Hungary, Serbia and Croatia, topped the Gallup index of the world’s least-accepting countries.
But the sharpest changes in attitude were in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, which have seen an influx of Venezuelans fleeing turmoil at home.
Scores dropped more than two full points in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, which have absorbed millions of Venezuelans since 2015.
Peru’s score tumbled to 3.61 from 6.33 in 2016, while the number of Colombians who said migrants living in their country was a good thing dropped to 29 percent from 61 percent.
Canada was the most welcoming country, followed by Iceland and New Zealand, according to the index based on more than 1,40,000 interviews in 145 countries and regions.
The poll asked people their views about having migrants living in their country, becoming their neighbours and marrying into their families.
Index scores ranged from 1.49 in North Macedonia to 8.46 in Canada, just below the maximum possible score of 9.
Between 2016 and 2019, the global score on the index, which gauges people’s acceptance of migrants based on increasing degrees of personal proximity to migrants, declined from 5.34 to 5.21.
Scores also dropped substantially in a number of other countries where migration continues to be a polarizing subject, including European countries such as Belgium and Switzerland, where right-wing, anti-immigration parties continued to gain ground between 2016 and 2019.
Notably, scores also declined in India, where controversial laws went into effect in late 2019 that provided paths to citizenship for migrants — excluding Muslims.
However, acceptance of migrants did not decrease in every part of the world; in fact, it rose by at least one full point in a number of countries.
This small group includes Chile, which has also taken in hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants and refugees. However, Chile did not absorb as many migrants as Venezuela’s closer neighbors in the region, and initially, the country tended to receive more-educated migrants (including many doctors) who had the means to travel.
In Moldova, which saw the biggest increase, the higher acceptance of migrants may be related to the influx of Turkish, Azerbaijani and Uzbekistani migrant workers into the country. Most of these workers were enrolled in foreign companies that brought in EU funds for different development projects.
Attitudes toward migrants have also notably improved in Poland, which was among several EU countries that voted against the United Nations’ migration pact in 2018. Although the country’s index score is not high, it improved by just under a point within the past three years, rising from 3.31 to 4.21.
-CHK
