World Humanitarian Day draws attention to pressing concerns around the global need for humanitarian protection. This post explores the findings of a study of 71 people’s migration journeys along the Central Mediterranean Route (CMR) to Europe. The study asks us to reconsider received wisdoms about human smuggling and trafficking. It calls for humanitarian support responding to harms experienced, which transcend binary legal categorisations as smuggled or trafficked.

A version of this blog was originally published as a paper in the Journal of Illicit Economies and Development and published with LSE Press in 2024. The journal is free to read and download via Open Access publishing.

Content note: This blog includes accounts from victims of forced labour, detention, torture, and human rights abuses, which some readers may find distressing.

Perilous journeys: navigating detention, forced labour, and exploitation.

Our study of 71 migration journeys on the CMR to Europe highlighted extreme hardships faced by people travelling along this route, including detention, forced labour, and exploitation. Three quarters of participants were detained before they arrived in Europe, most often in Libya. Participants described severe maltreatment in detention, including physical abuse, resource scarcity, unsanitary conditions and physical hardships. In several instances, captors tortured detainees to extort payments from their friends and families. Torture sometimes occurred daily and resulted in deaths.

A quarter of participants also underwent forced labour while in detention. Rayan (not his real name), from Darfur, described how it took place:

 During the day I would work like a slave, at night I would return to the prison to sleep. Three months of work and they never paid me anything. I was working like a slave.

Significantly, we observed actions and control mechanisms that demonstrated a level of extremity beyond what is typically associated with trafficking in other contexts. While kidnapping is often stereotypically linked to human traffickers, many trafficking instances actually involve subtler methods of control, such as deception and threats. In the Libyan context however, extreme abuses like kidnapping, ransoms, and the trading of people on the move between smugglers indicate a systemic commodification of people.

Blurred boundary: smuggling or trafficking?

While it is well known that exploitation occurs in Libya, it is often unclear whether this exploitation means that smuggling journeys can be classified as trafficking. In fact, the distinction between human smuggling and trafficking is not always clear-cut, especially on the CMR. Smuggling is typically understood as a consensual agreement where a person pays a smuggler to facilitate illegal entry into another country. The UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants defines smuggling as the procurement of illegal entry into a state for financial or material benefit. In contrast, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, defines trafficking as encompassing three key elements: the ‘act’ (e.g., recruitment or transportation), through certain ‘means’ (e.g., coercion, threats), for the ‘purpose’ of exploitation.

Our study of migration experiences on the CMR revealed that lived realities were more complex than these simple definitions. Several experiences were difficult to categorise. People could start their journeys believing they were simply paying for safe passage, but quickly find themselves in trafficking situations involving severe exploitation.

Extortion and torture for ransom: a ‘purpose’ of exploitation?

Ibrahim (not his real name) from Sudan recounted a harrowing experience:

After 18 days my friend Ahmed’s legs were tied to the ceiling. […] They would heat up wires and put them on his chest. They had tanks where they had toilet dirt. As part of the torture, they would put his head into the tank. Once, after they tortured him, they let go of the rope, he fell on his neck and then he died. Later, they dragged him outside and threw his corpse out. I was calling my family and my friend’s also. Ahmed’s family was […] selling their house, not knowing that he had already been killed.

Ibrahim’s account reveals severe human rights abuses. To determine whether this experience meets the definition of trafficking under international law, the ‘act’ refers to the physical retention of a person, the ‘means’ involves methods such as the use of force, and the ‘purpose’ is the extraction of money. To meet the Trafficking Protocol’s definition, the purpose must be exploitation. Although the concept of exploitation is not explicitly defined in the Trafficking Protocol, it specifies that exploitation ‘shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs’. Extortion or ‘torture for ransom’ is not explicitly mentioned as an exploitative purpose in the Trafficking Protocol. We contend that the systematic use of extortion in this context could be argued to constitute exploitation.

Escaping detention through forced sea crossings

We encountered several unique cases where trafficking transitioned into smuggling, involving the same actors. Several participants recounted that their captors had offered to release them on the condition of purchasing a smuggling journey to Europe. This condition may be an attempt by captors to avoid authorities and remove evidence of their activities while extracting large sums of money for a dangerous sea crossing.

Moreover, participants reported that smugglers sometimes forced people onto boats at gunpoint, despite the people’s fear of dangerous sea or boat conditions. Omari from Darfur recounted:

They used to whip some migrants who were scared to go up, so everyone went up; a lot of people got really scared when they saw the sea. But the armed guards would force people to board the [boat].

Once more, whether such experiences fit the international definition of trafficking largely depends on how we define the purpose of exploitation. If we consider extracting significant sums of money from detained people for unreliable and dangerous sea crossings as a form of exploitation, then many people arriving on boats may have endured trafficking, not smuggling.

Humanitarian support beyond binary legal categorisations

Labelling people as being trafficked or smuggled has real-world consequences for the safety of migrants[1] in the EU. A victim of trafficking can seek legal protection. By contrast, a smuggled migrant may have minimal rights, be expelled and criminalised. Our study’s findings acknowledge the difficulties in distinguishing between smuggling and trafficking under international law. However, the findings also suggest that many migration experiences could meet the international legal criteria for trafficking if thoroughly investigated.

We do not advocate for redefining these terms beyond offering a clearer definition of exploitation, nor do we support labelling all smuggling cases as trafficking. Rather, we echo recent calls to provide humanitarian protection services based on the hardships endured by people on the move, rather than on binary legal classifications or initial motivations for migration.

[1] We use the term ‘migrant’ to refer to individuals who are travelling irregularly on the CMR. This includes those seeking asylum as well as others who do not fall under the conventional definitions of refugees or asylum seekers.

Image credit: RDNE Stock project via Pexels

A version of this blog was originally published as a paper in the Journal of Illicit Economies and Development and published with LSE Press in 2024. The journal is free to read and download via Open Access publishing.