OIM — Migrant Smuggling Data and Research: A global review of the emerging evidence base VOLUME 1 — 2016

Migrant Smug­gling Data and Research: A glob­al review of the emerg­ing evi­dence base presents a unique review of what is being col­lect­ed and what can be done to fur­ther build the evi­dence base on migrant smug­gling glob­al­ly. The report is the result of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Migra­tion and researchers from a range of back­grounds and aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines, and sup­port­ed by the Gov­ern­ment of Turkey.

The report shows that impor­tant research has been under­tak­en on the transna­tion­al crime aspects of migrant smug­gling, includ­ing on routes, smug­gling orga­ni­za­tion (such as crim­i­nal net­work­ing and facil­i­ta­tion), smug­gler pro­files and fees/payment. Like­wise, there is an emerg­ing aca­d­e­m­ic lit­er­a­ture on migrant smug­gling, par­tic­u­lar­ly the eco­nom­ic and social process­es involved in smug­gling, which has large­ly been based on small-scale qual­i­ta­tive research, most­ly under­tak­en by ear­ly career researchers. Con­tri­bu­tions from pri­vate research com­pa­nies, as well as inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists, have pro­vid­ed use­ful insights in some regions, help­ing to shed light on smug­gling prac­tices. There remains, how­ev­er, size­able gaps in migra­tion pol­i­cy research and data, par­tic­u­lar­ly in rela­tion to migra­tion pat­terns and process­es linked to migrant smug­gling, includ­ing its impact on migrants (par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, abuse and exploita­tion), as well as its impact on irreg­u­lar migra­tion flows (such as increas­ing scale, diver­si­ty and changes in geog­ra­phy). Address­ing these sys­temic and region­al gaps in data and research would help deep­en under­stand­ing of the smug­gling phe­nom­e­non, and pro­vide fur­ther insights into how respons­es can be for­mu­lat­ed that bet­ter pro­tect migrants while enhanc­ing States’ abil­i­ties to man­age order­ly migration.