Marrakech, Morocco – Leaders from more than 150 countries have agreed upon a global pact that sets a roadmap “to prevent suffering and chaos” for global migration despite opposition and several withdrawals, including from the United States.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) was agreed upon on Monday at an intergovernmental conference in Marrakech, Morocco.

A non-binding agreement, the GCM aims to better manage migration at local, national, regional and global levels, including reducing the risks and vulnerabilities the migrants or refugees face at different stages of their journey.

The pact was approved in July by all 193 member nations except the US, which backed out last year.

In addition, Australia, the Netherlands, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Dominican Republic, Chile, Latvia, Slovakia, Estonia and Italy either refused to attend the conference or ruled out signing the agreement.

“This moment is the inspiring product of dedicated and pain-staking efforts,” said Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, at the opening of the conference on Monday.

“Migration has always been with us. But in a world where it is ever more inevitable and necessary, it should be well managed and safe, not irregular and dangerous.

“National policies are far more likely to succeed with international cooperation.”

Increasing migration numbers

There were 258 million international migrants in the world last year, increasing almost 50 percent since 2000, according to the UN.

The number of migrants, representing 3.4 percent of the world’s population, is increasing faster than the global population, driven by economic prosperity, inequality, violence, conflict and climate change.

Around 80 percent of the world’s migrants move between countries in a safe and orderly fashion. But more than 60,000 people have died on the move since the year 2000, according to the UN.

In 2018 alone, more than 3,300 people have “died or gone missing in the process of migrations towards an international destination”, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Even in transit countries, or country of destination, racism, discrimination and human-rights violations are continuously reported.

Anti-migration stance

From the US to Europe and beyond, right-wing leaders have taken increasingly draconian measures to shut out migrants in recent years.

US President Donald Trump has pledged to build a wall on the US-Mexico border and has focused his recent ire on a migrant caravan from Central America, while a populist coalition government in Italy has clamped down on boats rescuing migrants or refugees at sea.

“It is true that some states are not with us today,” said Guterres. “I can only hope that they will see the GMC’s value for their own societies and join us in this common venture.”

On Friday, the US took a fresh swipe at the pact, labelling it “an effort by the United Nations to advance global governance at the expense of the sovereign right of states”.

But a host of other nations led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel are in Morocco to endorse the deal and the UN, and rights organisations, remain upbeat that it can help the world better cope with the issue.

“Fortunately, not many countries were against the pact but there were some important countries in terms of economic influence,” Francesco Rocca, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told Al Jazeera.

“So it’s a concern they decided not to be present. This is political instrumentalisation. The GCM is very clear as it has no interference in internal policies or laws but only preserving dignity of human beings. Anyone who has good faith should have agreed to this pact.”

The UN General Assembly is set to adopt a resolution formally endorsing the deal on December 19 in New York.

19 to Watch in 2019 highlights politicians, activists and operatives across the country who are positioned to play a critical role in the political landscape leading up to 2020. From the new generation reshaping the Democratic Party to the behind-the-scenes players who keep Congress moving and those with their eyes on the presidential election, these are the people to watch over the next 12 months.

— By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman, Daniel Lippman, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun.

Fast Facts

November 19: Ghosn arrested over allegations of misconduct

November 20: Renault names interim boss

November 22: Nissan fires Ghosn

November 26: Mitsubishi fires Ghosn

November 29: The three automakers reaffirm their alliance

December 10: Ghosn charged

Japanese authorities have charged former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn with financial misconduct, three weeks after the businessman was arrested.

The 64-year old former CEO of carmaker Nissan was also re-arrested on new claims of misreporting his pay, local media reported on Monday.

In November, Ghosn was arrested for allegedly under-reporting his salary between 2010 and 2015 by some five billion yen ($44 million).

The details of his re-arrest are still unclear, but local media said it was possibly related to accusations of three additional years of under-reporting his income.

The new allegations will restart the clock on his detention, allowing prosecutors to seek to hold him for another 22 days.

Besides Ghosn, Japanese authorities also indicted Nissan for making false statements in annual reports and former Representative Director Greg Kelly, who allegedly masterminded the misconduct.

Both Ghosn and Kelly were arrested and remain in custody without bail.

Ghosn, who originally hails from Lebanon, was arrested on November 19 and has since denied the allegations made against him.

If found guilty, Ghosn could face a 10-year prison sentence, but it could take years before a verdict is reached, because the case might go through several courts before a final judgement is reached.

A towering figure in the car industry, Ghosn is credited with turning around several major manufacturers. Until his arrest, he led an alliance of Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi.

The two Japanese firms, Nissan and Mitsubishi, both sacked Ghosn  as chairman, but he remains the chair of Renault, which has appointed an interim boss.

In a statement released after the arrest, Nissan said it had been investigating Ghosn and Kelly for months, after receiving a report from a whistleblower.

“The investigation showed that over many years both Ghosn and Kelly have been reporting compensation amounts in the Tokyo Stock Exchange securities report that were less than the actual amount, in order to reduce the disclosed amount of Carlos Ghosn’s compensation,” it said.

“Also, in regards to Ghosn, numerous other significant acts of misconduct have been uncovered, such as personal use of company assets, and Kelly’s deep involvement has also been confirmed.”

Saviour of Nissan

One of the mostly highly-paid corporate bosses in Japan, Ghosn began his career at French tyre manufacturer Michelin in 1976, before moving on to Renault in 1996 where his cost-slashing measures earned him the nickname “Le Cost Killer”.

He was parachuted into Nissan and began a huge corporate overhaul when Renault acquired the then-ailing Japanese manufacturer in 1990.

Credited with saving Nissan from bankruptcy through a series of hardnosed measures, including closing plants and restructuring, Ghosn is a household name in Japan, where he is one of few high-profile foreign executives.

In 2016, he also took charge at Mitsubishi after Nissan threw the car manufacturer a lifeline following a mileage-cheating scandal that hammered sales. 

Ghosn is regarded as the glue which holds the alliance of Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi together and questions have been raised in the past about how his eventual departure might affect the group. 

However, he has also faced opposition, including over his pay. Bloomberg reported Ghosn took home some $6.5m from Nissan in the most recent fiscal year, in addition to $8.5m from Renault and about $2m from Mitsubishi. 

His compensation package from Renault prompted a spat with shareholders and criticism from Emmanuel Macron, when he served as France’s economy minister.

Image: Chesnot/Getty Images

Juba, South Sudan – A swell of laughs and chatter fills the air as Jemma* greets familiar faces inside Juba’s cultural centre, one of the few spaces in South Sudan’s capital to offer young people some entertainment.

But the voices get quieter as soon as the conversation turns to a topic that’s hard to avoid in this river port city of roughly 500,000 people.

“From the moment we’re born, we open our eyes and we know that everything black is bad,” Jemma told Al Jazeera, explaining why she is bleaching her skin.

Some young women nearby would rather not speak about this, not even anonymously. It’s too embarrassing, they say in a low voice, even if many are doing it.

Skin bleaching is a popular practice in many parts of the world – from Africa through Asia and the Middle East to North and South America – that promotes light skin as the standard of female beauty. Conservative estimates put the value of the global market at around $10bn annually.

But in South Sudan, the world’s youngest country and home to some of the darkest people worldwide, skin whitening and the issue of colourism – commonly defined as prejudice or discrimination against dark-skinned people – is linked to a complex history.

It can be traced back to centuries of colonialism, the violent birth of a nation and its displacement, as well as its decades-long struggle for acceptance and independence from its northern neighbour, Sudan, from which it seceded in 2011 after decades of civil war.

‘Second-class citizens’

Most of South Sudan’s tribes are of African heritage and the majority of them are Christian, whereas their northern counterparts in Sudan are of Arab origin and mainly Muslim.

Before independence, the latter, more light-skinned Arab Sudanese, ruled a then-united Sudan out of Khartoum, with a clear goal to Islamise and Arabise the entire country. In a speech to the National Assembly in 1987, Sudan’s then-Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi said: “The dominant feature of our nation is an Islamic one and its overpowering expression is Arab, and this nation will not have its entity identified and its prestige and pride preserved except under an Islamic revival.”

The southern African-identifying citizens were religiously and politically marginalised and suffered discrimination due to their skin colour – the region had long been a source of ivory and slaves, and the association with slavery prevailed.

Discrimination and racist commentary were commonplace. Classifications such as “blue-black” or “green black” can still be heard today in Sudan and some neighbouring countries, referring to the hue of people’s dark skin.

“When we were one Sudan, you were being made to feel like you’re a second-class citizen,” says Rebecca Joshua Okwaci, South Sudan’s minister of roads and bridges, and one of the country’s most known advocates against skin bleaching.

“The fact that you are from the descendants of the slaves, and slavery is always associated with black colour” played a big role, she adds, leaning forward to rest her arms on the large desk in front of her.

Proud of her skin colour, Joshua points out that “Sudan”, the country, is literally named after the skin colour of its people. “Sudan or South Sudan comes from the word sud,” she says – “sud” in Arabic is the basis for the word “aswad”, which means black.

“We [Sudanese and South Sudanese] are called ‘bilad al sud’ or the ‘country of the blacks’ because of our colour and therefore we are already there in history,” Joshua says.

Civil wars and identity struggles

Sudan experienced two civil wars (from 1955 to 1972, and from 1983 to 2005, which resulted in the 2011 secession), both of which were conflicts between the North and the South of the country.

During the second war, millions fled into neighbouring countries. Many South Sudanese spent their formative years in places where people were lighter skinned, such as Sudan, Egypt, Kenya or Uganda.

Suzan Kim Otor, country coordinator for the anti-hate speech organisation Defyhatenow, went through that experience.

“I grew up in Kenya and Kenyans are reputably lighter than South Sudanese and it has always been an issue,” says Otor, who doesn’t use skin-whitening products and never wanted to try them either.

Joshua also had her own run-ins with colourism during her time living in Egypt and Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

“Sometimes, some parents would say ‘be careful. Don’t befriend these children who are coming from South Sudan’,” she says, adding that people can feel “vanquished, defeated and they will struggle to find a way … to be accepted and therefore they may end up bleaching. I sympathise”.

After independence in 2011, many South Sudanese who had gone abroad to flee fighting and instability at home gradually decided to return. Having lived through racial abuse, some had grown accustomed to bleaching their skin in order to better fit in.

It’s a habit they – including Jemma at the cultural centre, who lived in Egypt – brought back home.

“I’m going to reduce it,” Jemma says, “because now I’m in my country. No one will look at me like I’m ugly”.

‘A battlefield between the dark and the light-skinned girl’

Still, Otor says there is “hatred and discrimination against dark people: who don’t use skin-bleaching agents”.

She points to a persisting social pressure to use such products, especially during weddings.

“When a bride is about to get married, they expect her to be light skinned. Why? Because light skin is a sign of beauty. So if you’re not light skinned and you’re not using the bleaching products … you find that your friends are going to talk ill about you. Your family members are going to force you” to bleach your skin, Otor says.

Her frustration shines through as she recounts instances where husbands would urge their wives not to tamper with their skin tone, telling them they prefer a natural complexion – even as on the side, these men would have affairs with light-skinned women who would be using bleaching products.

“And now, it’s a battlefield between the girls who are naturally dark and girls who are light skinned” who bleach, says Otor.

But she doesn’t budge. “If you have an issue with my colour, you shouldn’t be around me,” she says, adding that South Sudan is supposed to be a country of Africans, who are black.

‘Very difficult for others to get your colour’

Two years after its independence, South Sudan was plunged into its own ruinous civil war which was sparked by leadership disputes. As the violence continues, a lack of an administrative history paired with political instability means there are no statistics to portray the extent of the skin-bleaching practice.

Alier Nyok Deng Kuot, a dermatologist at Juba’s teaching hospital, estimates that out of the roughly 30 cases he sees daily, “10 to 15 are using bleaching agents”.

He says most people don’t necessarily set out to bleach their skin, but they get the creams prescribed to cure hyper-pigmentation – skin areas that are much darker than others.

“But the way people end up using it, is different,” he adds.

The bleaching agents are made to destroy or stop the production of melanin, the pigment responsible for the colour of the skin. Without it, the skin is left more vulnerable to UV light. In some cases, this has been linked to cancer, Kuot explains. In addition, many of these products rely on hydroquinone, a substance that thins the skin to the extent that it easily rips and becomes hard to repair.

Most of Kuot’s patients are women aged between 18 and 40. But he also often sees teenagers, some of whom are encouraged by their parents at a young age to use skin-lightening products. In some cases, he says, the young girls would steal the creams out of their mothers’ drawers.

The skin-whitening creams would in fact be unaffordable for the majority of South Sudanese teens. Most of Juba’s markets feature several stores, where people can buy bleaching agents. In one such store, stocked with skin-lightening products all the way to the ceiling, the owner says it’s mainly women in their 30s or 40s who are able to afford them.

His bestselling and cheapest skin-whitening cream costs between 450 and 500 South Sudanese pounds ($1.80 and $2 – black-market rate of 1:240). His most expensive product is about 5,000 South Sudanese pounds (roughly $20), which is roughly the average monthly income of a mid-level civil servant.

Al Jazeera spoke to about 10 women who bleach their skin. They all said they’re aware of the health risks and expressed concerns they would never be able to return to their original skin colour, even if they wanted to. But Kuot has encouraging words: “If the person stops using the bleaching agent, gradually the skin can turn to normal.”

At the same time, a growing chorus of voices opposing to the skin-bleaching practice, including prominent public figures such as Joshua, the minister, coupled with the international rise of dark-skinned celebrities like Senegalese model Khoudia Diop and Kenyan Hollywood actress Lupita Nyong’o, seem to have helped many South Sudanese women embrace their skin colour.

Joshua says she sees fewer women who bleach their skin, amid an increasing awareness about health risks and a growing pride for their young country.

“I believe the negative effect is fading away slowly and therefore, now, those who remain and still insist [on bleaching their skin], maybe [it’s] because of a hangover? Or maybe the message has not reached them,” she says.

And just like Jemma who says she’ll stop bleaching because she won’t be seen as “ugly” in her own country, Joshua concludes: “We are South Sudanese now. So, acceptable all over the world. It’s very difficult for others to get your colour.”

*not her real name

This report was made possible through a reporting fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) as well as Nancy Cerino, Samir Bol, Silvano Yokwe and Maura Ajak