Statement International Youth Day

Today August 12th marks the International Youth Day, which is an awareness day designated by the United Nations. The purpose of the day is to draw attention to a given set of cultural and legal issues surrounding youth. The United Nations celebrates this day under the theme “The Youth and Mental Health,” in reference to the main reason behind the youth’s immigration from the Third World countries in general and from Syria in particular. With the war in Syria in its fourth year, the Syrian youth has additional reasons to think about immigration because of the injustice, deprivation and love of life. After nearly half a century of the Baath Party’s takeover of power in Syria, accompanied by false promises of development and progress, and in light with the deterioration of all aspects of life caused by the Assad regime since it seized power, the Syrian intellectuals, journalists and entrepreneurs saw immigration as the only means of escape from poverty, deprivation and absence of opportunities. French researcher Simon de’ Vaal says in her book “Totalitarian Regimes” that the life of emptiness and misery where workers are deprived of their dignity as producers, the skills of the qualified workers are usually forfeited while others are rid of  opportunity to excel in anything.” 11. There have been efforts to define brain drain. According to UNESCO ‘brain drain could be defined as an abnormal form of scientific exchange between countries, characterized by a one-way flow in favor of the most highly developed, countries’. The nature of this transfer constitutes a one-sided transfer of productive resources embodying technology in human skills from the developing to receiving developed countries, thus limiting the developing countries’ capacity for development’. An example of the brain drain out of Syria is the story of Bassam Saeed Khadr, former president of the provisional council of the city of Raqqa who met a tragic death while trying to flee from death misery inflicted on him by the Assad regime. It is worth noting that the number of highly qualified Syrian migrants residing in the United States has exceeded 120,000 as of 2000. It is estimated that they pay two billion dollars in revenues to the United States as a cost of education, which is equivalent to half of the economic aid provided by the United States to the developing countries. (Source: Syrian Coalition)