Page 56 - FMR64_Trafficking and smuggling & Climate crisis and local communities_2020_web

FMR 64
56 Trafficking and smuggling
www.fmreview.org/issue64 June 2020

fee arrangements, including contingency 1. US Department of State (2019) Trafficking in Persons Report June
fee arrangements where lawyers receive a 2019 bit.ly/US-TIP-2019
percentage of the final amount paid to the 2. Wu H and Levy A (2020) ‘Prosecution at Any Cost? The Impact
of Material Witness Warrants in Federal Human Trafficking
client, may be exploitatively costly. Finally, Cases’, Human Trafficking Legal Center bit.ly/Wu-Levy-HTLC-2020
testifying in a civil context may be stressful 3. Levy A (2020) ‘United States Federal Courts’ Continuing Failure
for survivors. However, these disadvantages to Order Mandatory Criminal Restitution for Human Trafficking
Victims’, Human Trafficking Legal Center bit.ly/Levy-HTLC-2019
are not necessarily unique to civil cases, 4. Hauser C (2018) ‘Woman Trafficked by Cult Is Awarded $8
and may be more severe in the criminal Million: ‘They Took My Childhood’’, New York Times
context. Despite these risks, civil litigation bit.ly/Hauser20180525
deserves a place within a comprehensive, 5. Hutson B (2018) ‘From Enslavement to Empowerment: A
global anti-trafficking strategy. Trauma-Centered Approach to Civil Litigation’, Trafficking Matters
bit.ly/Hutston-trauma-civil-2018
Henry Wu henrywu98@gmail.com 6. https://sherloc.unodc.org
Rhodes Scholar-Elect for 2020, University of 7. El Termewy v Awdi & 3 Ors (2015) ‘Judgement’, High Court of
Oxford. The author was a 2019 Research Fellow Uganda at Kampala bit.ly/Eltermewy-Awdi
at the Human Trafficking Legal Center. 8. www.htlegalcenter.org

Challenging the so-called trafficking–terror finance
nexus

Craig Damian Smith
The assertion of a causal relationship between trafficking and terror financing is called into
question by poor evidence and weak data, and its troubling policy implications.
Since 2015, progressively bolder assertions by transnational trafficking networks rather
about the connections between trafficking than by complex migration dynamics.
and terrorism have been made in a The UNSC cites Libya as part of a global
series of UN Security Council (UNSC) trend of terror groups profiting from human
instruments. Most significantly, Resolution trafficking, alongside enslavement and
2388 of 2017 asserted that trafficking is trafficking by IS in Iraq, Syria and Turkey;
a major contributor to terror financing.¹ human smuggling by Al-Qaeda affiliates
And in 2019 the UNSC’s Counter-Terror in the Sahel; kidnapping, forced marriage
Executive Directorate (CTED) published and forced recruitment by Boko Haram in
a report that claimed to provide evidence Nigeria; ransoming by Al-Shabaab in the
for a genuine nexus between “human Horn of Africa; and the forced recruitment
trafficking, terrorism, and terror finance”. 2 of child soldiers by the Lord’s Resistance
Claims about the nexus developed in Army in central Africa. Although these
the context of the rise of the Islamic State cases are undoubtedly troubling, basic
(IS) group in Syria and Iraq, and EU and social science research methodology casts
EU Member States’ renewed efforts to doubt on their comparability and on the
contain irregular migration after the 2015 necessary causal relationships implied
refugee ‘crisis’. France initiated discussions by the term ‘nexus’. Moreover, the term
around Resolution 2388 in response to ‘nexus’ is often employed rhetorically
media reports about sub-Saharan African in order to push for productive pairings
migrants being sold at slave auctions in between two seemingly disparate policy
Libya and reports of IS affiliates profiting fields. There is reason for concern
3
from trafficking operations there. These about the UNSC’s policy agenda since it
news stories seemed to offer evidence that affirmed the existence of a trafficking–
was used to substantiate European claims terror finance nexus, then commissioned
that irregular migration was being driven research to provide evidence for it.