Summary
- Human trafficking is progressively is becoming an international problem, and counter-trafficking efforts have improved significantly. These initiatives have largely failed to disrupt trafficking supply chains through the prevention of trafficking activities, prosecution of traffickers or protection of victims.
- Several inherent characteristics of human trafficking and general pathologies within the security sector act as obstacles to effective counter-trafficking. These include several factors. Some are the transnational nature of crime, the facilitation of trafficking through globalisation, the covert crime networks and poor communication. On top of that, they include information sharing and understanding within the security sector, as well as a lack of resources allocated to counter-trafficking.
- Human trafficking is a direct and indirect threat to national and international security through its associations with corruption, transnational criminal organisations, terrorism and unregulated migration. Authorities must make efforts to improve counter-trafficking initiatives, or the security implications and humanitarian costs will increase considerably.
- Intelligence is a potential solution to overcoming the challenges of human trafficking and improving current approaches. Intelligence can reduce the self-facilitation of human trafficking. This is because it is the prerequisite to effective prevention, protection and prosecution while contributing prediction abilities.
Background on Human Trafficking
Since the mid-1990s, the trafficking of human beings has gradually ascended the international security agenda. In 2000, the UN implemented the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. UN did this to protect victims and encourage international collaboration against human trafficking. The UN has done great efforts to address this problem. They have done this by developing counter-trafficking strategies and amendments and creating trafficking legislation.
Despite numerous preventive and disciplinary actions, the scale, severity and pervasiveness of human trafficking are becoming increasingly concerning. The UN recognises human trafficking as a national and international threat to security in its own right.
We must improve our efforts to understand the security risks and implications of human trafficking and how to overcome them. Stimulating discussion in this area will, it is hoped, improve understanding of the potential consequences of human trafficking. At the same time, this will inspire creative approaches to counter-trafficking efforts, enhancing the value of contributions to this cause. We must improve our efforts to understand the security risks and implications of human trafficking and how to overcome them. Stimulating discussion in this area will, it is hoped, improve understanding of the potential consequences of human trafficking. At the same time, this will inspire creative approaches to counter-trafficking efforts, enhancing the value of contributions to this cause.
Security Implications
Terrorism
Human trafficking does not present a conventional threat to security. Itsas many of the impacts in question are indirectly linked to trafficking activities. However, neglecting to tackle the trade of human beings can increase the abilities of groups that pose a direct threat. A trafficker’s primary motivation is economic and thus open to exploitation by terrorist groups. Terrorist networks profit from this lucrative trade, which is related to the success and capabilities of terrorist activities.
Trafficking in persons is generally responsible for a relatively low percentage of terrorist revenue. Trafficking still provides a consistent and reliable funding source and grants easy access across borders. Terrorist groups have also been known to work in collusion with organised crime networks, transporting resources across international borders. Developing relationships between criminal networks increases their capability, flexibility, global reach and sophistication.
Corruption
Allowing trafficking networks to flourish and their activities to continue is corrosive to the security measures put in place. The more established and influential these groups become, the greater their ability to undermine security and exploit corruption. In this sense, the seriousness of the human trafficking problem is delicately intertwined with social security consequences. The openness of modern Western societies is an inherent weakness. This is due to public awareness of the investigative methods used by security services and law enforcement and the laws by which they are constrained.
Established criminal organisations ensure a detailed understanding of law, judicial, and tax systems in the countries in which they operate. Consequently, organised crime networks can develop symbiotically with state structure, sculpted by legal loopholes to avoid detection. This, in turn, can be used as leverage to exploit weaknesses in state security through corruption and political gain. This provides an added layer of protection from the state. Gaining control over security structures negatively impacts a state’s capacity to enforce the law at all levels successfully.
The more symbiotic a criminal organisation and state security structure become, the more challenging they are to overcome. As such, human trafficking is at risk of becoming a self-facilitating vicious cycle of crime. The more robust and capable trafficking groups become, the more challenging the trafficking problem will be to overcome.
Transnational Organised Crimes
Democracies aim to overcome these potential security threats, but bureaucratic inflexibilities and legal limitations constrict them. Human trafficking networks are complex and flexible. This ensures they are difficult and costly to investigate as they have distinct advantages over hierarchically organised governments. By their very nature, organised crime networks can waive the law in favour of questionable, illegitimate methods. The state arguably possesses more excellent technical capabilities. Nonetheless, the superior flexibility of trafficking networks reduces this power asymmetry.
Organised crime networks can easily create a cross-border relationship by transcending physical, social and cultural borders and must be confronted with an intensive response. Considering their relative sizes and capabilities, the security sector is forced to employ a vastly disproportionate amount of time and resources to combat transnational crime. The profile of these trafficking groups can take many forms, ranging in size and sophistication. Therefore, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution is unlikely. Due to increasingly effective border control and stringent immigration laws, the organised crime networks capable of overcoming these challenges must demonstrate versatility, organisation and access to resources to survive.
The security measures states have put in place have given rise to an increasingly sophisticated type of criminal and crime network. One would one expect more extensive networks to be more conspicuous, but the relative abundance of their resources allows them to conceal and safeguard their activities more successfully. As larger networks are more difficult and costly to eliminate, the challenges associated with investigating sophisticated networks can act as a deterrent.
Challenges to effective solutions
Poverty and Globalisation
Although counter-trafficking initiatives have been improved, several inherent features of human trafficking prevent it from being eliminated fully. Human trafficking continues to operate at endemic levels as the supply and demand for trafficked individuals are facilitated by the sustained existence of conditions that are far out of the control of law enforcement and, arguably, any branch of the security sector. Widespread inescapable poverty coupled with a lack of legal migration and employment opportunities perceived notions of greater prospects through migration, gender-based discrimination, and violence produce vast numbers of potential victims that are both willing and easy to exploit.
Supply is consistent and sustainable, and the demand for low-paid, unregulated foreign workers continues to rise. Meanwhile, modern developments such as globalisation and technological advancements, including the rise of the global internet and social media, have increased international interconnectivity and the entrepreneurialism of criminals. These developments have made it increasingly simple for traffickers to outsource trafficking and disguise activities through money laundering.
In turn, this has exposed modern states to novel vulnerabilities and improved the capabilities of non-state actors operating transnationally to exploit these vulnerabilities. Due to globalisation, transnational organised crime has increased in profitability, geographic scope and capacity. For human trafficking specifically, globalisation has eased the transportation of victims, and the dark web has proven to be an indispensable tool in the migration and sale of trafficked humans.
Treatment of Victims
Fear of punishment by their captors or law enforcement controls trafficking victims. Although the Palermo Protocol stresses that authorities should not hold victims of trafficking accountable for their immigration offences, this is not always upheld, and many fear further punishment or deportation. Inappropriate treatment of trafficking victims by the authorities contributes to a distrust of law enforcement and disinterest in cooperation with the police. Although awareness and understanding are improving and anti-trafficking programmes are being implemented, most organisations are inexperienced, unable to recognise the signs of trafficking and remain unequipped to deal with this problem.
In turn, this prevents traffickers from being detected and lowers risks associated with trafficking, further fuelled by low conviction rates. Additional human trafficking laws have not been enough to act as a deterrent, as the economic benefits of exploiting illegal workers hugely outweigh the relatively empty threat of punishment. It is difficult to prosecute transnational crimes, as they often occur across jurisdictions, resulting in diffusion of responsibility, bureaucratic blockades, resource discrepancies, corruption and conflicting laws and practices. Chances of successful prosecution are increased if the entire international channel of activities is presented in conjunction, requiring complex cooperation across a wide variety of countries and organisations; thus far, this is rarely accomplished.
Hope for the Future
Trafficking victims are perhaps the most valuable unexploited resource in the fight against trafficking; unlike other smuggled cargo trafficking, victims can provide rich qualitative detailed intelligence if their relationship with law enforcement officials can be improved. The overwhelming majority of academic discussion on counter-trafficking efforts is preoccupied with legal and judicial proceedings, neglecting to discuss the utility of intelligence in any great detail. Intelligence may be the key to overcoming a number of the inherent challenges of human trafficking as it is the prerequisite to effective prevention, protection and prosecution whilst also contributing prediction abilities.
If combined with improved cooperation between states, it is possible this can reduce enough pressure to permit the development of a more victim-centred approach, thus reducing the self-facilitation of human trafficking by increasing victim trust in law enforcement, increasing risk to traffickers, thereby reducing supply and demand for victims of trafficking. Conversely, if the trends maintain low prosecution rates, the economic benefits of trafficking will continue to outweigh the cost of potential law enforcement involvement.
Theorists and practitioners commonly conceptualise trafficking under the umbrella of transnational organised crime. Human trafficking is evaluated under the same theoretical framework as weapon and drug trafficking. The success of intelligence-led methodologies against other transnational organised crimes provides a sound evidential basis for assuming analysts can use intelligence successfully applied to human trafficking.
A general focus on organised crime often overlooks these unique requirements. Criminal networks offer numerous complementary criminal services, such as weapons smuggling, money laundering and human trafficking. Efforts to combat other transnational organised crimes may contribute to efforts against human trafficking and circumvent its unique challenges.
Conclusions
The 2017 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery estimated over 40 million people had become victims of modern slavery. This generates $150 billion per year. This is the second most profitable criminal activity behind drugs. Human trafficking is an appalling violation of human rights that maintains the potential to undermine international security. Criminals do this through its associations with corruption, terrorism and organised crime. Although efforts against human trafficking are commendable, it is clear the effectiveness of current methods is not enough. The humanitarian costs are indefensible at the most basic level, and improvements are necessary. Human trafficking poses a more significant direct threat to the security of more minors. Nonetheless, in unstable nations, the transnational nature of the crime ensures that the victims feel the consequences internationally.
Human trafficking is a complex global crime that requires a complex solution and effective transnational communication and collaboration. Opportunities to target traffickers arise at origin, transit, and destination. Failure to establish a workable alliance along this chain of events wastes valuable and essential opportunities. We can improve the effectiveness of information sharing, develop a victim-centred approach and raise awareness of the utility of intelligence. In that case, we can reduce the threat human trafficking poses to society.
