FRONTEX WATCH

The cost of a ‘one-way ticket’ to Spain or Italy is difficult to ascertain, as it is all obviously illegal. The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) estimated that for 450,000 illegally smuggled migrants some €4,200,000,000 could be earned, which would be about €9,333 per person.
The annual report of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for 2003 mentions prices of between €1,800 and €3,200 for a crossing to Spain. Another ‘source’ mentions that a boat trip for a Guinean from Dakar (Senegal) to the Spanish coast would cost ‘more than € 850’. A trip from the West African coast to the Canary Islands would be cost more than €3,000, which would be six times as much as with a pirogue [canoe] from the Western Saharan coast (€500). The correlation between the price and the mode of transportation employed is very clear: the easier and more comfortable the trip, the higher the price.

Usually they are able to stay in the EU. Spain, for example, has a law that states that migrants whose identity cannot be determined 40 days after they landed in the country will be set free. What happens is that these migrants will be taken (from the Canary Islands) to the Spanish mainland and set free. The majority of these refugees stay – with an illegal status – in Spain, while others travel on to other countries.

The costs of being smuggled are never paid in advance; migrants often have to work in their country of destination to first pay off their debt, before they can actually start to build up a new life. For women, this often means that they end up in illegal prostitution: some of them because they do not have other options to earn a living, while many others are forced into prostitution.

Some prices are old, but still: read it all!
The African Migration Movement: Routes to Europe
David van Moppes, 2006