Italy initiates €1.5million social media campaign to discourage migrants

July 31, 2016

The  has collaborated with the  (IOM) to produce an on- and offline media campaign aimed at discouraging refugees from entering Europe. The campaign, titled "Aware Migrants", was launched Thursday, exposing high levels of violence and danger in transit, and discouraging from attempting passage through illegal trafficking. The 1.5million campaign features videos on social media to target the 16–35 age demographic, believed to be most likely to attempt the move. The videos are to include testimonials from more than 150 refugees, citing, child abuse, and exposure as potential threats. Each video concludes with the phrase "Be aware, brother" or "Be aware, sister". This slogan is also thematic in Malian musician's 's official campaign song: "Be aware brother, be aware sister".

Italy's Interior Minister,, said they will still welcome refugees fleeing war, but that others may be declined. Recent large numbers of arrivals and migrant deaths has been cited as the reason behind the campaign, with the recording over 70,000 refugees arriving in Italy in the first half of 2016. Federico Soda, the Director of the IOM Coordination Office for the, asserts most of those migrants did not expect the level of danger involved in transit.

Migrants are invited to share their own experiences in response to the videos posted on, , and , in order to spread the warning to other potential migrants.