Wednesday, March 23, 2016, by Stefano Filletti
Migrants and criminal networks
The exponential in-crease of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants into Europe and the evident involvement of organised criminal networks on a large scale, together with the number of requests for operational support from the UN, the EU and other organisations, call for an adequate and coordinated European response.
According to a report published by the International Organisation for Migration, the total arrivals in Europe in 2015 stood just above a staggering one million migrants, with some 971,288 arriving by sea alone.
The biggest number of migrants passed through Greece – 821, 008, mostly by sea – followed by Italy – 150, 317, also by sea – and the rest through Bulgaria, by land.
The number of migrant fatalities last year reached a staggering estimate of 4,000. So far this year, already more than 400 have died by drowning.
One area in the limelight, and rightly so, concerns the phenomenon of the organised smuggling of migrants, a criminal offence in itself. Previously, the main focus of attention was human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Without minimising the seriousness of human trafficking in any way, the recent upsurge of migrants into Europe has shifted attention to human smuggling. From a criminal law perspective, human smuggling presents some peculiar characteristics of its own.
Human smuggling generally involves the procurement for financial or other material benefit of the illegal entry of a person or a group of persons into a State where that person or group is not a national or a resident.
The phenomenon has been acutely felt in southern Europe and the Mediterranean basin, with the increase in refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants, mostly coming from Eritrea and the sub-Saharan region, heading for the European mainland across the sea.
Although there are aspects of human trafficking and smuggling which converge, there are also significant differences as to the expectations and treatment of persons being smuggled. Moreover, human smuggling is generally undertaken with the actual consent of the person smuggled, who is often made to pay a hefty sum of money in anticipation of the “service” rendered.
Smuggled persons may even end up victims of other crimes. In addition to being subjected to unsafe, degrading and inhumane conditions while in transit, smuggled persons may suffer physical violence. Recent cases of human smuggling in the Mediterranean witnessed the overloading of unseaworthy boats or inflatable dinghies with migrants, some of whom ended up perishing at sea through drowning.
This shocking experience is still happening almost daily in the Aegean Sea right now.
Sporadic attempts have been made at the international level to target smugglers’ boats through the use of force but, so far, similar attempts have met a number of legal and practical obstacles and results achieved have been negligible. At the moment, Nato is conducting one such operation in the Aegean Sea.
Some countries, like Libya, are loath to allow a foreign force acting within their territorial jurisdiction without prior approval. Similar interventions should ideally be covered by a UN mandate and not otherwise.
Also, it is quite risky to attack boats while the hapless migrants are still on board.
One way forward would be for all states to ratify and implement the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and its Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air.
Europol has launched a new migrant smuggling centre with the aim of supporting EU member states in dismantling criminal networks involved in organised migrant smuggling.
The centre is set to focus on geographical criminal hotspots and seeks to enhance across the EU the capability to fight people smuggling networks. The launch is intimately linked to a decision adopted by the EU justice and home affairs ministers to accelerate the establishment of such a centre, reflecting the top priority that migrant smuggling has now acquired.
Nothing short of a well-coordinated and sustained action can halt human smugglers from operating with relative ease to the detriment of security and democratic stability in Europe.
*Stefano Filletti is a lawyer and head of the Department of Criminal Law at the Faculty of Laws, University of Malta.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20160323/opinion/migrants-and-criminal-networks.606541
Received on Wed Mar 23 2016 - 06:17:06 EDT