These rejected visa costs can be considered ‘reverse remittances’. Money is flowing from poor to rich countries. These costs rarely feature in debates over aid or trade where the emphasis is always on money heading in the other direction. As with many aspects of the traditional narratives on global relations, this has to change to represent the missed opportunities for low and middle-income countries that arise from limiting the movement of people across borders.
These ‘reverse remittances’ are just the tip of an iceberg of the costs incurred by those whose visas are denied. In most cases, applicants pay more than the basic application fee, with private agencies involved in processing visa applications and brokers providing additional services along the way. The costs of not being able to travel for business and leisure also result in significant losses for all those involved: from non-refundable flights to not being able to attend an academic conference, art fair, or concert you were booked for.
Research and data, however important, will never tell the full story, or be enough to deliver change. It is people and their lived experiences which will help make a difference. The sheer cost of visa inequality has been widely featured in the news in some of the most affected countries, such as Nigeria. But the outrage exceeds the costs. It is a story of discriminatory and often humiliating practices, where the sheer lack of reciprocity in the way humans are treated across borders is rightly seen as unjustifiable by all those affected.
Passport privilege must stop – yet this will take a long time. Fixing the deeply unequal and dysfunctional short-term visa system to allow people to travel for business and leisure is a good way to start.
Photo credit: Reem Aljeally; Khartoum, Sudan ‘Politics of Land and Paper’, 2023. Courtesy of Moleskine Foundation Collection. Photo by Raffaele Bellezza.