RIGHTS: Trafficking in Migrants, ‘Trade in Human Misery’

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Feb 23 1998 (IPS) - Trafficking in migrants is a form of irregular migration which in recent times has become a highly organised and lucrative “global business,” according to the latest report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

In the report, released during the latest session (Feb. 16-20) of the UN Working Group on the human rights of migrants, the IOM describes the phenomenon as a “trade in human misery, whose scope and complexity are staggering,” in which women are subject to the worst abuses.

The IOM cites estimates which calculate that traffickers move as many as four millon illegal migrants each year, with illegal revenues of up to seven billion dollars.

The clandestine journeys are often dangerous, with migrants crammed into boats or trucks without sufficient air, water or food, says the report, which recalls a tragic incident that occurred in July 1995, when 18 Sri Lankan Tamils suffocated in the back of a sealed container abandoned by traffickers on the plains of Hungary.

“Trafficked migrants have frozen to death in refrigerated vans, and large numbers of people drown every year in clandestine river or sea crossings,” the IOM adds.

“The dramatic changes witnessed in the world order since the end of the Cold War have contributed to an increase in population movements,” says the report. The opening of formerly closed borders, the emergence of regional groupings, and the redrawing of borders such as in eastern Europe have promoted freedom of movement and redefined the relevance of frontiers.

Meanwhile, internal conflicts in a number of countries, the growing gap between rich and poor, swelling populations, environmental destruction and political and economic instability have pushed more and more people to flee tough or unendurable living conditions, fuelling further growth in migration.

But a number of States have set more restrictive immigration policies and tighter entry controls, leading to a decrease in the possibilities for legal migration in most parts of the world.

Tougher restrictions, however, have run parallel to increased demand in the same countries for certain categories of foreign labour, demand that serves as an incentive for migration and a boost to irregular movement, the report stresses.

That demand has created a market of services for illegal immigrants, such as the provision of false travel documents, transportation, guided border-crossings, lodging and employment.

“Migrant traffickers exploit the desire of hundreds of thousands of people around the world to leave behind poverty, unemployment, persecution or conflict in search of better opportunities abroad,” says the IOM.

Several of the heaviest flows of illegal immigration, it adds, are of Kurds trafficked from Iraq and Iran through Turkey and Greece to other European countries, North Africans trafficked to Spain across the Mediterranean sea, Somalian asylum-seekers trafficked to Sweden in cargo boats, and southern Asians who risk their lives and life savings to reach western Europe or the United States in air or watercraft, but who often have to cross borders on foot.

The ILO report also cites the cases of Chinese emigrants who go through Moscow and Central America on their way to western Europe or the United States, and Mexicans who try to enter the United States with the help of traffickers.

The report provides special attention to the “widespread and particularly disturbing” trafficking in women.

It cites the cases of Philippine and Thai women trafficked to Japan to work in the “entertainment industry”, Nepali girls sold or abducted and taken to work in Indian brothels, Central and Eastern European women trafficked into the Netherlands and Belgium, Nigerian women who are deceived and forced into prostitution in Italy, and women from the Dominican Republic trafficked into Europe.

According to the IOM, trafficking in women is part of “the exploitation of women that has occurred throughout history and across cultures, and is an issue of both gender and abuse of basic rights.”

The report warns that poor women or women with limited opportunities in their home countries are lured by false promises of well-paid jobs abroad, while others are sold by their families or simply abducted.

But once firmly trapped within an illegal migration environment, either in transit or in the receiving country, their documents are taken away by their “agents,” and they frequently end up in bonded labour or forced prostitution.

The IOM demands recognition of the gravity of the phenomenon, at both a national and international level, while underlining that the migrants involved are victims and should not be further punished by authorities.

According to the report, “trafficking” – the illicit transporting of migrants or trade in them – “can be said to exist if the following conditions are met: an international border is crossed; an intermediary – trafficker(s) – is involved in the movement of the migrant; the recruitment and transporting of migrants or the disposition of such migrants en route or after arrivals is accomplished through illicit or abusive means; the trafficker profits from such activities in terms of economic or other personal gain.”

The IOM concludes that “the continued growth of migrant trafficking presents a challenge to the international community. It poses a very real threat to migrants around the world, who are being deceived, exploited and robbed of their basic human rights and dignity.”