Page 58 - FMR64_Trafficking and smuggling & Climate crisis and local communities_2020_web

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

including by CTED), purports to offer might very well be limited transnational
country-level and global metrics, but relies activity to measure in the first place.
on shaky estimation strategies derived from a
range of activities which do not have a cross- Opportunism, oppression and recruitment
border element – the factor that is largely Trafficking carried out by IS is the most
used by law enforcement and international obvious case of terrorists trafficking
organisations to detect cases and estimate for profit. Most notoriously, IS enslaved
and collate data. Experts interviewed thousands of Yazidi women and girls
during my research made rather pointed in Iraq who were given as spoils of war,
criticisms about its reliability. They argued subjected to systematic rape, sold locally
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that despite anticipated scepticism among or trafficked to Syria and Turkey. At its
scholars over the statistics’ rigour, there peak, this involved complicated logistics
is widespread acceptance of the estimates organised by a dedicated IS committee but,
at UN level, partly because of intense organisational sophistication aside, the FATF
lobbying by the Walk Free Foundation and acknowledges that “it is difficult to envisage
partly because the GSI appears to provide a human trafficking as a lucrative source of
solution to complex estimation problems. revenue” for the group when weighed against
The next step in identifying a causal other sources like oil, antiquities, ransom
nexus would be to estimate the scale of money and taxing local populations.
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trafficking-related earnings made by terror Evidence suggests that terror groups
groups. Here again we run into major issues. more often use trafficking and allied crimes
There is no doubt strong evidence that for operational and ideological purposes
terror groups rely on criminal activity for rather than financing. Groups use slavery and
financing. However, personnel from UNODC forced marriage to recruit, retain and reward
and from the Organization for Security members, or to terrorise local populations,
and Cooperation in Europe relayed how and routinely engage in forced recruitment
terror financing figures are often based on of combatants and child soldiers. Most of
classified intelligence from agencies who have these practices, however, do not amount to
a vested interest in over-emphasising the international trafficking. UNSC Resolutions
issue. Assessments are not made available for therefore bundle long-standing crimes and
independent review, and instead researchers human rights abuses with the new focus on
often simply cite official statistics. Likewise, Syria, Iraq and Libya. As one respondent
respondents argued that there is a good deal who worked in the Obama administration
of misunderstanding among policymakers observed, “The Security Council seems
around the connections between to be conflating trafficking with types of
transnational criminality and terrorism, exploitation we’ve been combatting for a
noting a trend of conflating geographical couple of decades.” More broadly, whereas
overlap with operational convergence. traffickers seek to remain clandestine,
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – terrorists court political attention, which is
an inter-governmental watchdog organisation unconducive to the bribery, collusion and
– has emphasised the difficulties with corruption necessary to move people across
tracing proceeds from irregular migration borders. For example, in the Libyan coastal
in general. While they were familiar with town of Sabratha, smugglers bankrolled the
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the cases cited in the UNSC instruments, fight against IS because the presence of the
UNODC respondents I interviewed were group was jeopardising their revenues.
adamant they knew of no statistics (classified Armed groups have long operated along
or otherwise) to support the claim that irregular migration routes. Before General
groups like Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram or IS Qaddafi was toppled in 2011, smuggling and
earned a significant portion of their profits trafficking in Libya were controlled by the
from trafficking. Since smuggling and regime and its allied forces. Migrants are now
trafficking are more often localised, there vulnerable to trafficking in areas controlled