According to research by Lago Collective, the United Kingdom and Schengen countries earned millions of pounds and euros by collecting fees from rejected visa applications from Global South countries including Pakistan.
The report revealed that Pakistanis spent £5.3 million on rejected UK visa applications with almost 40 percent of rejected applications in 2023 alone.
In the same year, around 50 percent of Schengen visas from Pakistan were also rejected, with €3.344m spent on applications.
Marta Foresti, co-researcher of the Lago Collective research paper, highlighted, “Visa inequality has very tangible consequences and the world’s poorest pay the price. You can think of the costs of rejected visas as ‘reverse remittances’, money flowing from poor to rich countries.”
According to Foresti, “Visa regimes are not equal or reciprocal,” emphasizing that while European citizens can easily obtain a visa to a third-world country; the situation isn’t similar when any poor country’s citizen tries to obtain a visa to Europe.
Meanwhile, visa application fees are increasing which means an extra burden on those trying to move towards better opportunities abroad.