LONDON: When Nigerian lawyer Obioma Adesewa Okonkwo was booked to speak at the RightsCon conference in Costa Rica, she made sure to submit her visa application several months in advance.

As the date approached with no sign of her travel documents being granted, she felt she had no choice but to cancel her trip and contact organisers at advocacy group Access Now to arrange to join online instead.

More than 300 participants were unable to attend the digital rights conference in person due to visa issues, Access Now said in a statement.

Kenyan Nanjala Nyabola, a board member at Access Now, said many Black and brown participants had been picked out and detained by Costa Rican border agents for periods of up to three hours. Some were later deported, she wrote on Twitter.

Anger over their treatment has reignited debate about unequal visa and border regimes that limit Global South nationals’ participation in international conferences tackling issues from climate change to economic systems and conflicts.

“If you have a summit that is global then you have to consider that there are people coming from countries who are regularly denied visas,” said Okonkwo, a legal officer at Media Rights Agenda, which defends freedom of expression in Nigeria.

“I really wanted to learn from digital rights advocates from other continents ... I was shut out from participating in those kinds of discussions.” She said her visa application was eventually rejected.

Access Now, a global organisation headquartered in New York, said authorities in Costa Rica had agreed to offer visas on arrival in the country for conference attendees, but border authorities did not uphold the arrangement.

It apologised to all those impacted, and pledged to learn and make changes as a result.

“We have a responsibility to ensure that participants are seen and that their voices matter in these spaces,” said Nikki Gladstone, RightsCon Director.

“It’s our responsibility to anticipate and help mitigate the barriers participants will face.” She said the event is held in different countries each year in an effort to be more accessible, and they chose Costa Rica because they had never had the summit in Central America before.

“Visa justice” fights

Critics say visa rules that are stricter for citizens of poorer nations are a significant factor limiting participation of people from developing countries in major conferences.

Ugandan climate activist Hamira Kobusingye said she often needs letters of recommendation to apply for visas to attend summits — a step not required of most Global North travellers.

Despite her efforts, she said she was denied visas to attend the Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany in June and the UN 2023 Water Conference in New York.

“My colleagues all over the continent were denied visas,” she said, adding that they were being distracted from their campaigning work by “visa justice” battles.

Kobusingye said she was told her applications did not meet the criteria for a visa.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2023