Switzerland Produces Nigerian TV Series To Tell Migrants Not To Come

Switzerland's State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) is spending $450,000 on filming a TV series with African actors showing the perils of living in Europe illegally, which will be shown on Nigerian television.

"We have seen that a lack of information or false information is one of the main problems that leads to illegal migration," SEM spokesman Lukas Rieder told The Local. "Human traffickers tell potential migrants that Switzerland is paradise, it's El Dorado. But that's not true. We want to provide objective information about the dangers of passage, and the dangers of living in Switzerland without a permit, for example."

The series, called Missing Steps, helmed by well-known Nigerian actor and director Charles Okafor, tells the story of a 20-something university-educated protagonist. He gets into debt and flees to the landlocked European state to solve his financial problems, with the help of traffickers.

But he is denied asylum by the Swiss authorities, and deported to his own country -- poor, isolated and unhappy.

"He pays a high price," summed up Okafor in an interview with national broadcaster Swissinfo.

Okafor is convinced that the series -- which has 13 episodes, lasting 45 minutes each and costs less than an episode of many Western-made soaps, not to mention big-budget hits like Game of Thrones -- is good value for money, particularly if it can be shown across multiple African states.

"Television globally is a very powerful medium, because it has the capacity to reach a vast mass -- a critical mass of people... even hundreds of millions of viewers," said Okafor.