PEOPLE SMUGGLING IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Fiona David Australian Institute of Criminology, ACT Paper presented at the Transnational Crime Conference convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology in association with the Australian Federal Police and Australian Customs Service and held in Canberra, 9-10 March 2000
I d like to begin by giving you a brief overview of what I ll be talking about today. As you all know, people smuggling and trafficking are complex and controversial subjects. Most recently, my work has been as a Research Consultant to the United Nations Global Programme Against Trafficking in Human Beings and it has been my task to sort out the fact from the fiction. In my assessment, there are two ways to approach the issues of people smuggling and trafficking. First, it is possible to identify certain trends in relation to people smuggling and trafficking. For example: Where people are coming from, and where they are going to; Why they proceed down this dangerous path; And how they do it. These trends are of great relevance to law enforcers, policy makers, and anyone working in international relations. I will talk briefly about these trends in the first part of this paper. The second way to approach these issues is through consideration of case studies or examples. This is just as important as looking at the trends because, as you all know, reality has an annoying habit of refusing to conform to theory. For this reason, the second part of my paper today will comprise a short case study. I hope you will see that even with good information about the trends in people smuggling and trafficking, putting rational policy into practice is incredibly difficult. People smuggling and trafficking are by definition, transnational criminal activities so any response that is short of international, regional or perhaps even global will generally be incomplete. The solution to people smuggling and trafficking lies not only in domestic policies and responses, but regional and international cooperation and coordination. Before turning to the key trends in people smuggling and trafficking, it is necessary to define some key terms. What exactly is people smuggling and trafficking, and how do these concepts differ? While there continues to be a lot of disagreement about the meaning of these terms, increasingly NGO s and international organisations are using definitions drawn from the draft Convention on Transnational Organised Crime and its Optional Protocols. Today, I ll use such a definition, in this case, the definitions used by the UN Global Programme. So what exactly do we know about smuggling and trafficking? We know where people are coming from and where they are going to. Basically, people travel from developing countries, to developed countries such as the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia or they travel to neighbouring countries that might also be described as developing but that have a higher average income and better standard of living. For example, there is considerable illegal movement from Myanmar to Thailand. 2
Where people travel to, tells us a great deal about their motivations. While it is not the only reason or even the predominant reason, the economic incentive is clear. Consider, for example, the huge gap between the average annual income of people living in the following origin and destination countries. As I mentioned, economic reasons are only one of a long list of reasons why people seek to migrate illegally. People choose to migrate for a whole variety of social and political reasons, including: War Oppression Desire for personal or professional development Population pressure Search for greater opportunity Environmental degradation Natural hazards We can all think of examples for these East Timor, Kosovo, Somalia, Albania, the recent floodings in Mozambique each of these terrible tragedies has mobilised hundreds of thousands of people in search of food, shelter, safety and ultimately a better life for themselves and their families. In addition to these push factors, there are pull factors and these might include: A demand for cheap, irregular labour A high standard of living A well developed population of certain ethnic or immigrant groups In some cases, an unofficial government policy of tolerating or overlooking illegal workers, at least while the economic conditions require a pool of cheap labour. The result is migration on a massive scale it was estimated that in 1993/4, approximately 100 million people, or 2% of the world s population, were living outside the country of their birth. We know that there are many ways that people get through or get around existing immigration systems and we also know that people are incredibly inventive they will come up with the most incredible scams, or knowingly put themselves in dangerous situations, if it means getting to where they want to be. In the Australian context, the most common way for people to gain entry is to obtain a visitors visa, and then disappear into the Australian community. The second most popular method is to present bogus documents at points of entry this ranges from photo-substituted passports, with people hoping to get through undetected, to cases of people turning up at the Customs counter saying they have no documents, and that they are here to claim asylum or refugee status these people have generally disposed of their documents on the plane, and it is very difficult to ascertain their true identity and nationality. 3
As you can see from this table, despite the recent high profile of boats landing on Ashmore Reef, entry by sea is still the least common way of attempting to get into Australia. Indeed, the numbers of people arriving by boat is hardly surprising Australia is a massive island with a coastline of nearly 37,000 kilometres, most of which is unpopulated. This vast expanse of coastline makes Australia a relatively easy target for smuggling and trafficking operations. What is perhaps more interesting is the fact that recent interceptions have uncovered highly organised operations transporting large numbers of illegal migrants who have agreed to pay thousands of dollars to organisers. The involvement of transnational organised crime groups in people smuggling and trafficking activities to Australia is part of a global trend. People smuggling and trafficking are generally perceived to be a low risk, high gain activities. People smuggling can generate huge profits for organisers. For example, the ship the Kayuen transported 69 people who had paid around $40,000 each this equates to takings of some $2.76 million. Proceeds can then be used to finance further operations. Now this brief overview of the main trends only scratches the surface of the complexities of the issue but I want to turn now to the case study I mentioned earlier. This is an example from the Philippines - I have chosen this particular story as it fairly typical of the situation for Filipino migrant workers. This is the story of Donna, who grew up in a semi-urbanised town in the Philippines. Donna has a loving family, she received a good education, so good in fact that she ultimately went on to obtain a Bachelor in Teaching from a University in Manila. So far so good. After she graduated, Donna learned from a relative who was also a recruiter - that there were many jobs available abroad. Donna liked the idea of adventure, she wanted to travel, and she liked the idea of living and working overseas. She immediately paid the recruitment agency her placement fee, prepared the necessary documentation, obtained a passport, and signed a two year contract to work in Kuwait as a domestic helper. It is important to consider the social and cultural climate in which Donna made this decision to travel abroad. Migration for work is a way of life in the Philippines. According to the latest official estimates, some 7 million Filipinos presently work overseas and some 3.5 million of them are undocumented workers. Migration is very important to the economy of the Philippines it generates billions of dollars in remittances - and this is in a country where some 40% of the population live below the poverty line. In the Philippines, the poverty line is not set at a dollar figure it means having no access to housing, food or other necessaries of life. 4
So to Donna, it was not that strange when the agency suggested she use fake documents to exit the Philippines. Following the murder of a Filipino domestic helper in Singapore several years before, the Philippine government had made strict laws restricting the ability of young women to work overseas as domestic helpers. To get around this problem, the recruitment agency obtained falsified papers for her present at the immigration counter as she left the country It was a different story once she got to Kuwait here, she could present her real documents, including her contract of employment and work visa. After she arrived in Kuwait, Donna was picked up by her new employer. Unfortunately the rest of this story is pretty predictable. Donna was taken to a wealthy household with lots of domestic helpers - and she was asked to sign a new contract, which stipulated that she would be paid in Dinars instead of US dollars, and that she would be paid a lesser amount than that which she had agreed to in the Philippines. Her employer took her passport and other documents from her, and this was the last she saw of them. Donna worked for several months in difficult conditions there were other Filipino domestics in the household but they were not permitted to talk to each other. The domestic helpers were fed from the left-overs of the household and if there were no left-overs, they did not eat. One day when Donna was cleaning the bedroom of one of her employers, he entered the room and attempted to sexually assault her. Donna fought back, and in doing so, she tripped and fell, knocking herself unconscious. The next thing she knew she was in the emergency ward of a hospital being checked for internal injuries. Soon afterwards, Donna was returned to her employer, where she was subjected to verbal abuse, of the nature that he had wasted his money on her as she was no good. Donna didn t understand this at first but she eventually learnt that her employer had paid the recruitment agency money for her airfare and travel expenses. You may recall that these were expenses that Donna had also paid for. To cut a long and sad story short, Donna ultimately returned to the Philippines after working for around six months, having been paid the equivalent of $150. There are a number of lessons that can be learned from this case study. Clearly, Donna would not have gotten far without the assistance of the recruiter and the other middle-men who organised who fake documentation and these are issues that need to be properly addressed by law enforcement and the criminal justice system in the Philippines. But looking beyond domestic issues for a moment, the obvious solution to the problem in this case would have been for Donna s exit and entry documentation to have been checked and verified both as she left the Philippines, and as she entered Kuwait. While it is not difficult to imagine such a system, there are some obvious stumbling blocks. The first is resources. I am not familiar with the immigration system in Kuwait but I do know that the immigration system in the Philippines is largely paper-based. While many government departments are computerised, immigration is not one of them. 5
The second stumbling block, and I think the key to all of this, is the lack of international cooperation and coordination. While countries might attend international meetings and sign conventions, there is far less in the way of agreements between countries as to how processes will operate to the benefit of both countries. The memoranda of understanding that Australia has with several countries in the region in relation to the movement of children is a good example of practically-based international cooperation and coordination. Now I ve only been able to scratch the surface of the issues that are raised by people smuggling and trafficking and I hope you ll refer to the AIC web-site, or the new trafficking publication for more information But I d like to leave you with one last thought. A lot of attention is given to the issue of trafficking in women, and indeed there are very real and serious issues here that need to be addressed but lets not forget that male illegal migrants may be vulnerable to exploitation and abuse for many of the same reasons that female migrants become vulnerable poverty, unemployment, debt, dislocation, and their status as illegal workers. There are many documented cases of male illegal migrants being subjected to extreme forms of violence and exploitation at the hands of traffickers. We should not forget about these people simply because of their gender. So, in closing, I d like to thank the AIC for inviting me to participate today, and I d like to thank you all for your time. 6