Migrants with tired faces laden with the hardships of the hazardous journey from Central America to the United States rest in a shelter in Mexico, which many reach after being cheated by “coyotes” out of everything they had. Credit: Ximena Natera/ Pie de Página

By Daniela Pastrana
MEXICO CITY, Jun 3 2017 (IPS)

Each year, some three million undocumented immigrants enter the United States, half of them with the help of traffickers, as part of a nearly seven-billion- dollar business, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Although Mexico is still the main source of migrants to the United States, a rise in the flow of migrants from Central America and South America has been seen in the last few decades, and more recently from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.

Three-quarters of these new migrants cross Mexico and many of them are victims of criminal networks.“When they refer to transnational policies in the U.S., they mean not letting migrants into the country and pursuing the coyotes. But they are not referring to policies to address the problems surrounding the whole phenomenon, and even less to the victims.” -- Ana Lorena Delgadillo

Human trafficking is one of the hidden violations of the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people. But, although the smuggling of migrants is a transnational crime, in the countries involved in this phenomenon there are no transnational policies to address the problem.

“The agreements that exist between countries are aimed at cracking down on people to keep them from crossing borders. But there is not one bilateral or trilateral agreement that really seeks to solve the problem in an integral manner,” Martha Sánchez Soler, coordinator of the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement (MMM), said in an interview with IPS.

Every year, the MMM organises a convoy of Central American mothers searching for their missing children in Mexico, which has prompted an effort to build bridges between countries in the region to trace the missing migrants.

“We have reported ‘coyotes’ (people smugglers) a thousand times and they don’t do anything to them because there is no serious intention to stop the problem. Coyotes are good business for governments,” the activist explained.

Human trafficking and people smuggling are crimes that have come into the spotlight in Latin America, and in multilateral bodies, in recent years.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) says the phenomenon is fuelled by difficult living conditions in less developed countries, the stiffening of migration policies in industrialised countries, and the fact that it was not previously seen as a structural problem, but as a series of isolated events.

The U.N. Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, signed in Palermo, Italy in 2000, was the international community’s response to the rise in human trafficking, considered a modern form of slavery.

The Convention was reinforced by the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.

Although many people confuse human trafficking and people smuggling and use them as synonymous terms, they are related but involve different activities: the objective of trafficking is the exploitation of a human being,it is considered a form of modern slavery, and victims do not necessarily cross borders.

Migrants travelling across Mexico on their way to the United States replicate the Way of the Cross to symbolise the ordeal experienced by the victims of human trafficking in the region, which generates some seven billion dollars a year in profits. Credit: Ximena Natera/ Pie de Página

Smuggling, on the other hand, is a transnational crime, since it involves the facilitating of the illegal entry of a person to a country for economic benefit; it is often done in dangerous or degrading conditions; the victims give their consent; and it generally ends with the arrival of migrants to their destinations.

However, in Mexico, people smuggling has combined with other forms of crime and many migrants fall victim to trafficking networks for sexual exploitation or forced labour for drug cartels.

According to the UNODC, the smuggling of migrants from Mexico to the U.S. generates nearly seven billion dollars a year in profits, which makes it one of the most lucrative transnational organised crimes, since it is less risky than drug trafficking.

Felipe de la Torre, from the UNODC office in Mexico, said this is a “conservative” figure, in a crime “necessarily linked to corruption, which has proliferated“ up to the highest levels of government and public bodies, not to mention private sectors such as railway companies.

“The routes of migrants began to coincide with those of drug trafficking, making the crossing even more violent…It became a business generating outrageous profits for organised crime, in which many lives are lost and the physical and psychological health of many others is put at risk,” said De la Torre.

Mexican lawyer Ana Lorena Delgadillo, head of the Foundation for Justice and Democratic Rule of Law, told IPS that “the Palermo Convention is the key to these issues; there are more general bilateral agreements, but they focus more on research and on coordination between justice systems.”

She added that: “although regulations are in place, there are no real regional policies establishing measures to ensure a comprehensive approach to this phenomenon.”

“When they refer to transnational policies in the U.S., they mean not letting migrants into the country and pursuing the coyotes. But they are not referring to policies to address the problems surrounding the whole phenomenon, and even less to the victims,” she said.

The particular case of Cuba

An example of this lack of policies has been seen in the case of Cuban migration since 2015. In November that year, the government of Costa Rica dismantled a people smuggling network, which triggered a crisis, with several thousands of migrants stranded in different countries in the region, that closed their borders to the transit of undocumented migrants.

Two Cuban migrants rest in a shelter in Costa Rica, when hundreds of them were stranded on their way from Ecuador to the United States, where many fell victim to human smugglers. Credit: Mónica González/Pie de Página

In Cuba, most of the people cheated by human smugglers suffer the consequences in silence. The most dramatic cases, with tragic human losses, are often depicted in national TV series on crime, based on real life stories. This phenomenon has hit Cuba since migration got trapped in the conflict with the United States, in the 1960s.

Migrant smuggling is punished with harsh sentences that include life imprisonment in aggravated cases. But no clear data exists on the human costs.

“The risks are enormous, because you are at the mercy of the mafias. With them, there is no room for any law or human rights,” a Cuban living in the United States, told IPS. He said smugglers mainly used to come from the U.S. to pick Cubans up on speedboats, as they defected illegally.

In recent years, migrants have left Cuba legally, heading first to South America or Central America on their dangerous journey to the U.S., paying smugglers 7,000 to 13,000 dollars per person and often falling prey to violence, extortion and other crimes at the hands of trafficking networks. The journey of at least 7,700 km takes them across as many as eight national borders.

“One of my best friends paid 4,000 dollars to a man who was supposed to arrange her departure from the country. Her family spent the same amount in the U.S. After a year, she had no choice but to admit that she had been swindled. Since it was an illegal operation, she did not file a complaint,” 40-year-old professional Idalmis Guerrero told IPS.

The woman’s story dates back to before the immigration reform implemented in January 2013, which expanded travel rights for Cuban citizens, revoked the requirements of an exit permit and letters of invitation from hosts abroad – cumbersome procedures that drove up the costs and red tape involved in any trip for personal reasons.

However, obtaining a visa for the United States or other countries is still difficult.

On January 12, 2017, a week before handing over the presidency to Donald Trump, then president Barack Obama terminated the U.S. Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, known as the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which basically guaranteed Cuban immigrants residency one year and one day after they set foot on U.S. soil.

He also eliminated the Cuban Medical Parole programme, which enabled Cuban medical professionals stationed in other countries on international missions to defect and obtain visas to the United States.

Although Mexico and Cuba have several agreements for working together against people smuggling, Cubans arrested on their way to the U.S. began to be deported on Jan. 21 after they were denied safe conducts that give foreign nationals 20 days to leave Mexico.

With additional reporting by Patricia Grogg in Havana.

A Libyan drug and alcohol trafficking police squad. Credit: Maryline Dumas/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 24 2016 (IPS)

A new report has found that global drug use largely remains the same, but perspectives on how to address the issue still vary drastically.

The new World Drug Report, released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), provides a review on drug production and use and its impact on communities around the world.

UNODC has estimated that 1 in 20 adults, or quarter of a billion people between the ages of 15 and 64 years, used at least one drug in 2014. Though the figure has not changed over the past four years, the number of people classified as suffering from drug use disorders has increased for the first time in six years to over 29 million people.

Of those, 12 million are people who inject drugs and 14 percent of this population lives with HIV.

UNODC’s Executive Director Yury Fedotov noted the significance of such a comprehensive review, stating: “The 2016 World Drug Report highlights support for the comprehensive, balanced and integrated rights-based approaches.”

However, Kasia Malinowska, Director of Open Society Foundation’s (OSF) Global Drug Policy Program, expressed her disappointment in the document.

“It’s a little bit of business as usual,” she told IPS.

She particularly pointed to the lack of recognition of drug prohibition policies.

For instance, in the report, UNODC notes that drug-associated violence is higher in Latin America than in Asia. Malinowska told IPS that this overlooks a history of militarised narcotics interventions in Latin America that did not exist in Asia.

In the 1990s, the United States funded anti-narcotics police operations in Colombia which contributed to a spike in drug-fuelled violence as well as the longest war in the Western hemisphere which killed over 220,000 civilians.

Although the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP signed a historic ceasefire agreement this week, Colombia continues to be a major coca and cocaine producing country.

“My question is how have external actors contributed to violence…and there is no recognition of that bigger context, and that’s the problem with the report,” Malinowska told IPS.

“It does not take responsibility of how much current prohibitionist policies have contributed to that problem,” she continued.

Malinowska highlighted the need to recognize that prohibition is not the only way to address drugs, and that policies must be contextualised according to the wellbeing of countries’ own citizens rather than international conventions.

UNODC’s Director of Policy Analysis and Public Affairs Jean-Luc Lemahieu echoed similar sentiments during a briefing, stating that “not one shoe fits all.”

He pointed to Netherlands and Sweden as two examples.

In the Netherlands, the government implemented a “separation of markets” approach, which separated cannabis from other hard drugs. Its aim was to limit exposure and access to harder drugs.

This proved to be a success for the country as cannabis use remained low. The Dutch government also invested in treatment, prevention and harm reduction approaches which helped it to maintain low rates of HIV among people who use drugs and low rate of problem drug use.

Sweden, on the other hand, implemented more restrictive drug policies that punish drug use and curb drug supply. UNODC noted that the country’s approach is a “success” as it has low rates of drug abuse and needle-associated HIV transmission.

Both Lemahieu and Malinowska also stressed the need to integrate sustainable development with global drug policy.

In the report, UNODC recognized the contribution of poverty and lack of sustainable livelihoods to the cultivation of crops such as coca leaves.

“Illicit drug cultivation and manufacturing can be eradicated only if policies aimed at the overall social, economic and environmental development communities,” the report states.

Malinowska, however, told IPS of the need to offer “proper” choices and opportunities to poor smallholder farmers engaged in the drug economy. Though not everyone may choose other economic activities, she remarked that no one has tried the approach.

“What we need is thoughtful, sustainable development…we are using the same matrix, the same paradigm, the same language and that really needs to dramatically change,” she said.

“It is really important that we stop thinking of it as a drug problem but that we look at it as a problem of severe underdevelopment in some regions,” Malinowska concluded.

The World Drug Report 2016 has been published following the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in April.

During the launch of the report, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson described it as an issue of “common global concern” that affects all nations and sectors of society.

Bolivian President Evo Morales (right) shakes hands with UNODC Representative Antonino De Leo at the launch of the latest Bolivia Coca Survey. Credit: Jose Lirauze/ABI

By Ronald Joshua
VIENNA, Aug 18 2015 (IPS)

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has praised Bolivia for reducing coca bush cultivation for the fourth year in a row. According to the latest Coca Crop Monitoring Survey, released Tuesday in La Paz, coca cultivation declined by 11 per cent in 2014, compared to the previous year.

The surface under cultivation declined from 23,000 hectares (ha) in 2013 to 20,400 ha last year, hitting the bottom since UNODC began its monitoring survey in 2003.

At the Survey’s launch, UNODC’s Representative in Bolivia, Antonino De Leo, praised the Bolivian Government’s efforts for the continued reduction of the coca crop area during the last four years. De Leo highlighted that, between 2010 and 2014, “the surface under coca cultivation declined by 10,600 ha, which represents a reduction of more than a third.”

Through the use of satellite imaging and field monitoring, reductions in the two main areas of cultivation were detected. The regions of Los Yungas de La Paz and Trópico de Cochabamba together constitute 99 per cent of the areas under coca cultivation in the country.

Between 2013 and 2014, these two areas reduced their surface under coca cultivation by 10 per cent and 14 per cent respectively, from 15,700 to 14,200 ha and from 7,100 to 6,100 ha. In the Norte de La Paz provinces the cultivation area decreased from 230 to 130 ha, reports the survey.

There are 22 protected areas in Bolivia – accounting for 16 per cent of the country’s surface – where coca crops are forbidden by Bolivian law. In 2014, there were 214 ha of coca crops detected within six protected areas, of which 59 per cent were in Carrasco National Park.

In February 2013, Bolivia re-acceded to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs with a reservation on coca leaf. This reservation allows the chewing, consumption and use of the coca leaf in its natural state for cultural and medicinal purposes, as well as its growth, trade and possession to the extent necessary for these licit purposes.

The United Nations Information Service (UNIS) from Vienna said: “The current national legislation, which dates back to 1988, states that the area under coca cultivation must not exceed 12,000 ha. In the last years, the Bolivian government delineated the zones where coca crops are allowed within the three coca cultivation areas of the country: the Yungas de La Paz, Trópico de Cochabamba and Norte de La Paz provinces.”

The reduction of the surface under coca cultivation in 2014 is mainly explained by the Government’s efforts to reduce the surplus of coca crops in permitted areas – known as ´rationalization´ – and to eradicate coca crops in prohibited areas, UNIS added.

A dialogue-based process led by the Government saw the participation of coca growing unions in the implementation of the national strategy to reduce the surplus of coca crops in permitted areas. Another important factor has been the abandonment of old coca fields in the Yungas de La Paz province, due to the drastic reduction of their coca crop yields.

Between 2013 and 2014, the area eradicated declined by two per cent at the national level, from 11,407 to 11,144 ha. Meanwhile at the provincial level, some 7,400 ha were eradicated in the region of Trópico de Cochabamba, around 3,200 ha in the Yungas de La Paz and Norte de La Paz provinces, and 526 ha in the Santa Cruz and Beni regions.

The potential coca leaf production in the country was estimated to be 33,100 tonnes in 2014. Between 2013 and 2014, the total value of the coca leaf production declined from 294 million dollars to 282 million. The total value of coca leaf production in 2014 represented 0.9 per cent of Bolivia’s overall gross domestic product (GDP) and 8.8 per cent of its agricultural sector Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The amount of coca leaf traded in the two authorised markets – Villa Fátima and Sacaba – was around 19,800 tonnes in 2014, equivalent to 60 per cent of the total production of coca leaf. Ninety-three per cent of the legally traded coca leaf was marketed in Villa Fátima, and the other seven per cent in Sacaba. The average weighted price of coca leaf in these authorised markets increased six per cent, from 7.8 dollars per kg in 2013 to 8.3 dollars per kg in 2014.

Download the full 2014 Coca Survey in the Plurinational State of Bolivia (in Spanish)

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "The magnitude of the problems we face is such that it is sometimes hard to imagine how any effort can be enough to confront them. But to quote Nelson Mandela, 'It always seems impossible until it is done'. We must keep working together, until it is done" – Yury Fedotov. Credit: Courtesy of UNODC

By Yury Fedotov
VIENNA, May 27 2015 (IPS)

With terrorism, migrant smuggling and trafficking in cultural property some of the world’s most daunting challenges, “the magnitude of the problems we face is such that it is sometimes hard to imagine how any effort can be enough to confront them. But to quote Nelson Mandela, ‘It always seems impossible until it is done’. We must keep working together, until it is done.”

The words are those of U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Yury Fedotov, who was speaking at the closing of the 24th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (Crime Commission) held in the Austrian capital from May 18-22.

Earlier this month, IPS Editor-in-Chief Ramesh Jaura interviewed Fedotov on how the challenges facing the United Nations’ drugs and crime agency translate into challenges on the sustainable development front.“The share of citizens experiencing bribery at least once in a year is over 50 percent in some low-income countries. Many detected human trafficking movements are directed from poor areas to more affluent ones. Research also suggests that weak rule of law is connected to lower levels of economic development” – UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov

Q. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), established in 1997, understands itself as “a global leader in the fight against illicit drugs and international crime”. At the same time, you have taken up the cudgels on behalf of sustainable development. What role does the UNODC envisage for itself in achieving sustainable development goals to be agreed at the U.N. summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda in September?

A. Crime steals from countries, families and communities and hampers development while exacerbating inequality and violence, especially in vulnerable countries. Trafficking in diamonds and precious metals, for instance, diverts resources from countries that desperately need the income.

The share of citizens experiencing bribery at least once in a year is over 50 percent in some low-income countries. Many detected human trafficking movements are directed from poor areas to more affluent ones. Research also suggests that weak rule of law is connected to lower levels of economic development. These are just some of the many challenges that the international community faces around the world that are related to crime.

UNODC’s broad mandate includes stopping human traffickers and migrant smugglers, as well as tackling illicit drugs. It encompasses promoting health and alternative livelihoods and involves battling corruption, illicit financial flows, money laundering and terrorist financing. Our work confronts emerging and re-emerging crimes, including wildlife and forest crime, and cybercrime, among others, all of which hinder sustainable development.

Currently the United Nations is making the transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In Goal 16, the Open Working Group, responsible for identifying the development goals stressed the need to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, and to provide access to justice for all, as well as building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions. Justice is also one of the six essential elements identified by the Secretary-General in his own Synthesis Report on this subject.

Goal 3, which focuses on “ensuring healthy lives”, underlines the importance of strengthening prevention and treatment of substance abuse. These goals – justice and health – go to the very heart of UNODC’s mission. I am hopeful that when the U.N. Heads of State Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2015 takes place these goals will remain.

Q. UNODC organised its Thirteenth Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice from Apr. 12 to 19 in Doha, Qatar. The 13-page Doha Declaration contains recommendations on how the rule of law can protect and promote sustainable development. Is that the reason that you described Doha as a “point of departure”?

A. The Doha Declaration was passed by acclamation at the 13th Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, and contains crucial recommendations on how the rule of law can protect and promote sustainable development. The declaration is driven by the principle that these issues are mutually reinforcing and that crime prevention and criminal justice should be integrated into the wider U.N. system.

At the 24th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (May 18-22), there were nine resolutions before the Commission and they pave the way for the Doha Declaration to go before the U.N. General Assembly and ECOSOC for approval. The other resolutions, for instance on cultural property and standard rules on the treatment of prisoners, seek to implement the principles of the Doha Declaration.

It is for this reason that I described the 13th Crime Congress in Doha as a significant “point of departure”. Doha is the first, but not the last step in the process of implementing the Declaration and ensuring that we turn fine words into spirited and dedicated action in the areas of crime prevention and criminal justice – action that can benefit the millions of victims of crime, illicit drugs, corruption and terrorism.

If we do this, we have an opportunity to energise the 60-year legacy of Crime Congresses and give it the power to shape how we tackle crime and promote development for many years to come. Indeed, I see a strong, visible thread between the recent Crime Congress, September’s UN Summit on Sustainable Development and the 14^th Crime Congress in Japan in five years’ time.

Q. The Doha Declaration also pleads for integrating crime prevention and criminal justice into the wider United Nations agenda. This suggestion comes at a point in time when the United Nations is turning 70. Are there some issues which the United Nations has ignored until now or is there a range of issues that have emerged over previous decades?

A. Member States are increasingly affected by organised crime, corruption, violence and terrorism. These challenges undercut good governance and the rule of law, threatening security, development and people’s lives.

Sustainable development can be safeguarded through fair, human and effective crime prevention and criminal justice systems as a central component of the rule of law. As stated by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: “There is no peace without development; there is no development without peace; and there is no lasting peace and sustainable development without respect for human rights.”  We need to break down the walls between these activities and integrate the various approaches.

UNODC is well placed to assist. We work closely with regional entities, partner countries, multilateral and bilateral bodies, civil society, academia and the private sector to support the work on development. We can also offer our support at the global, regional, and local levels, through our headquarters and network of field offices.

Q. Do you find willingness on the part of all countries around the world to agree on national, regional and international legal instruments, to combat all forms of crime, and their willingness to pull on the same string when it comes to implementation?

A. Our work is founded on the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and its three protocols, the Convention against Corruption, international drug control conventions, universal legal instruments against terrorism and U.N. standards and norms on crime prevention and criminal justice.

Almost all of these international instruments have been universally ratified by the international community. Why? Because countries recognise that crime today is too big, too powerful, too profitable for any one country to handle alone. Countries recognise that, today, crime not only crosses country borders, but regional borders. It is a global problem that warrants comprehensive, integrated global solutions.

The UNODC approach to this unique challenge is threefold. First, we are building political commitment among Member States. Second, we deliver our activities through our integrated regional programmes across the world. Third, we are working with partners, both within and outside the United Nations, to ensure that our delivery is strongly connected to other activities at the field level.

In support of this action, and to give just one example, UNODC is networking the networks. Today’s criminals have widespread networks and vast resources; if we are to successfully confront them, we need to ensure greater cross-border cooperation, information sharing and tracking of criminal proceeds.  The initiative is part of an interregional drug control approach developed by UNODC to stem illicit drug trafficking from Afghanistan and focuses on promoting closer cooperation between existing law enforcement coordination centres and platforms.

Q. UNODC has assigned itself a wide range of tasks. Which are your priorities in the biennium ending this year, during which you have 760.1 million dollars at your disposal?

A. I would mention two matters that are of international importance. First, smuggling of migrants not just in the Mediterranean or the Andaman seas, but also elsewhere. We are witnessing unprecedented movements of people across the globe, the largest since the Second World War. People are leaving because of conflict, insecurity and the desire for a better life. They are falling into the arms of unscrupulous smugglers and many of them are dying, while trying to make the dangerous journey across deserts and seas.

Second, the nexus of transnational organised crime and terrorism is a major threat to global peace and security, and has been recognised as such in recent Security Council resolutions. Every extremist and terrorist group requires sustainable funding. The most reliable, and sometimes the only, means of achieving this is through illicit funds gained from transnational organised crime, including cybercrime, drug trafficking, people smuggling and many other crimes.

Information on the magnitude and exact nature of such relationships remains incomplete, and more research is needed. Based on data and analysis, however, for some regions, we can follow the funding in support of violent extremism and terrorism. In Afghanistan, for example, the Taliban could be receiving as much as 200 million dollars annually as a tax on the drug lords.

Edited by Phil Harris    

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