Migration is one of the most significant public interest issues facing Africa today
In Mombasa, Kenya, journalism leaders from ten Eastern African nations gathered in June 2026 to confront a quiet but consequential failure: the region's migration stories, told too often in fear and shorthand, were shaping policy and public understanding in ways that harmed the very people they depicted. Under the auspices of the ILO and with support from the UK's development office, these journalists adopted the Mombasa Statement on Responsible Migration Reporting — not as a new invention, but as a collective return to journalism's oldest obligation: to tell the truth in its full complexity. In a region where millions live inside the currents of human movement, the quality of that telling is itself a form of governance.
- Misinformation about migration spreads faster than any correction, and across Eastern Africa it has been quietly distorting policy, public perception, and the choices of vulnerable people.
- Journalists from ten countries arrived in Mombasa carrying a shared admission: their own coverage had too often reduced migration to a single, fearful equation, leaving out labour opportunities, legal pathways, and the full human reality.
- The ILO's newly launched Migration Reporting Toolkit gave participants concrete methods for verifying claims, protecting vulnerable sources, and distinguishing factual reporting from the false promises traffickers and smugglers use as weapons.
- Cross-border reporting initiatives and coordinated advocacy were planned, recognising that migration stories do not respect national boundaries and neither can the journalism that covers them.
- The forum concluded with the formal adoption of the Mombasa Statement — a regional commitment to evidence-based, ethically grounded coverage that holds governments accountable without surrendering to sensationalism or ideology.
Ten Eastern African countries sent their journalism leaders to Kenya in June 2026 to make a collective promise: that migration stories would be told with facts, not fear. Union officials and media professionals from Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda gathered for a three-day forum hosted by the Kenya Union of Journalists — an attempt to repair something broken in how the region talks about people on the move.
Migration shapes everything in Eastern Africa. It reshapes labour markets, drives economic decisions, and moves millions of working families through patterns that make the region simultaneously an origin point, a transit zone, and a destination. Yet journalism about migration has too often trafficked in stereotypes and panic, reducing the entire phenomenon to a simple equation: leave or starve. The forum, funded by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and organised through the ILO's Better Regional Migration Management Programme, was designed to change that. As the ILO's chief technical advisor Aida Awel put it, accurate reporting matters because millions of people's lives depend on public understanding.
Over three days, participants examined the real dynamics of regional migration — labour trends, economic realities, the vulnerabilities that irregular movement creates. But they also confronted a gap in their own work: migration abroad gets framed as the only escape, while domestic and regional opportunities remain invisible. Balanced journalism, they concluded, must show both the genuine dangers and the genuine possibilities. A practical outcome was the launch of the ILO Toolkit on Migration Reporting, offering concrete guidance on covering vulnerable people without sensationalising their suffering, verifying claims in a landscape thick with rumour, and distinguishing fact from the false promises that traffickers peddle.
The gathering also created space to address journalists' own conditions — media freedom, reporter safety, editorial independence — and to plan cross-border reporting initiatives, recognising that migration stories don't respect borders. The forum concluded with the adoption of the Mombasa Statement on Responsible Migration Reporting, a formal commitment to ethical, evidence-based coverage in the public interest. What emerged was not a new rule but a reaffirmation of an old one: that journalism's job is to name both the real dangers and the real opportunities, to hold governments accountable, and to treat migration not as a crisis to be solved but as a human reality deserving the same care brought to any story that shapes millions of lives.
Ten countries across Eastern Africa sent their journalism leaders to Kenya in June to make a collective promise: that migration stories would be told with facts, not fear. The gathering brought union officials and media professionals from Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda into a three-day forum hosted by the Kenya Union of Journalists. What they were really doing was trying to fix something broken in how their region talks about people on the move.
Migration shapes everything in Eastern Africa. It reshapes labour markets, drives economic decisions, tears families apart and rebuilds them elsewhere. Millions of working families live inside these currents—as migrants themselves, as people left behind, as communities receiving newcomers. The region sits at the crossroads of Africa's largest migration patterns, serving simultaneously as origin point, transit zone and destination. Yet the stories journalists tell about migration often miss this complexity. They traffic in stereotypes, amplify panic, or reduce the entire phenomenon to a simple equation: leave or starve.
The forum, funded by the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and organised through the International Labour Organization's Better Regional Migration Management Programme, was designed to equip journalists with tools to report differently. Aida Awel, the ILO's chief technical advisor on the programme, framed it plainly: accurate reporting on migration matters because millions of people's lives depend on public understanding. "By equipping journalists with the knowledge and tools to report accurately and responsibly, we are contributing to greater public awareness, accountability and regional cooperation," she said. The work was urgent because misinformation about migration spreads faster than correction, and false narratives shape policy.
Over three days, participants examined the actual dynamics of migration across the region—the labour trends, the economic realities, the human costs. They studied how irregular migration creates vulnerability to forced labour and trafficking. But they also discussed something often missing from migration coverage: the legitimate opportunities. Fair recruitment practices, vocational training, legal pathways to work, entrepreneurship within the region itself. The journalists acknowledged a gap in their own reporting: migration abroad gets framed as the only escape route, while domestic and regional opportunities remain invisible or undervalued. Balanced journalism, they concluded, must show both the genuine dangers and the genuine possibilities.
A practical tool emerged from the forum: the ILO Toolkit on Migration Reporting, which offers journalists concrete guidance on covering migration stories with accuracy and ethical sensitivity. The toolkit addresses a real problem—how to report on vulnerable people without sensationalising their suffering, how to verify claims in a landscape thick with rumour and propaganda, how to distinguish between fact and the false promises that traffickers and smugglers peddle. Participants spent time strengthening their skills in fact-checking and information verification, recognising that in an era of deliberate disinformation, a journalist's credibility depends on rigorous sourcing.
The forum also created space for journalists' organisations to discuss their own challenges: media freedom, reporter safety, editorial independence. They planned cross-border reporting initiatives and coordinated advocacy efforts, understanding that migration stories don't respect borders and neither should journalism. The gathering concluded with the adoption of the Mombasa Statement on Responsible Migration Reporting, a formal commitment to ethical, evidence-based coverage that serves the public interest rather than sensationalism or ideology.
What emerged from Mombasa was not a new rule but a reaffirmation of an old one: that journalism's job is to tell the truth as completely as possible. In the case of migration, that means refusing both the panic narrative and the utopian one. It means naming the real dangers—exploitation, trafficking, the predators who profit from desperation—while also naming the real opportunities and the real people making real choices. It means holding governments accountable for how they treat migrants and workers. And it means understanding that migration is not a crisis to be solved but a human reality to be reported on with the same care and complexity that journalists bring to any story that shapes millions of lives.
Citas Notables
By equipping journalists with the knowledge and tools to report accurately and responsibly, we are contributing to greater public awareness, accountability and regional cooperation on issues that affect millions.— Aida Awel, Chief Technical Advisor, ILO Better Regional Migration Management Programme
In an age of rampant misinformation and disinformation, public interest journalism, where information integrity is consciously preserved, is essential to ensuring that migration narratives are guided by facts rather than false promises and unrealistic expectations.— Omar Faruk Osman, FAJ President
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does it matter how journalists in Eastern Africa report on migration? Isn't the story the same everywhere?
The story is the same in outline—people move, seeking better lives—but the context is completely different. Eastern Africa is simultaneously a place people leave, pass through, and arrive in. The same person might be a migrant in one country and a host community member in another. When journalists get it wrong, they don't just get facts wrong; they shape how governments treat migrants and how communities receive them.
What was actually broken about migration reporting before this forum?
The coverage was incomplete. Journalists would tell stories about the dangers—trafficking, exploitation, irregular routes—but rarely about the legal pathways, the vocational training, the regional opportunities that exist. So the narrative became: leave the region or fail. That's not just inaccurate; it's dangerous because it pushes people toward the very irregular routes that expose them to the worst abuses.
The forum launched a toolkit. What does that actually do?
It gives journalists practical guidance on how to verify claims, how to report on vulnerable people without sensationalising their trauma, how to distinguish between fact and the false promises that smugglers use to recruit people. In a region thick with misinformation, that's not a small thing.
Who benefits from better migration reporting?
Everyone, ultimately. Migrants benefit because their stories are told accurately instead of as stereotypes. Host communities benefit because they understand migration as a complex reality rather than a threat. Governments benefit because they can make policy based on evidence rather than panic. And journalists benefit because they're doing their actual job—serving the public interest.
What's the Mombasa Statement, and why does it matter that they adopted it?
It's a formal commitment from journalists across ten countries to report on migration ethically and factually. What matters is that it's not imposed from outside; it came from the journalists themselves. They're saying: this is how we're going to do our work. That kind of collective commitment is how professional standards actually take root.