The mode of flight
During times of civil strife and anarchy the media often relay images
of tides of refugees carrying nothing but a few possessions over vast terrain on foot.
This is the most widely used method of transport and has become a constituent of the
refugee experience for many people. Stowaways desperately hide themselves away on ships,
hoping not be discovered. Nonetheless, those who are discovered are regularly tossed
overboard by captains wishing to avoid carrier liabilities imposed by the industrial
nations. Others hide themselves in trucks or on trains, many of them in cramped spaces
where they run the risk of freezing, suffocating or starving on route. There are
innumerable reports of immigrants and refugees swimming across rivers and using little
boats in order to flee, here too they put their lives at risk by drowning. People hide
themselves in trucks and containers in cramped conditions with little or no food and run
the risk of freezing or suffocating to death. For the most part the flight of refugees
consists of a number of these. However, human trafficking is fast becoming one of the
primary methods of transport of refugees and immigrants trying to reach Europe and other
industrial nations.
Human Trafficking
Human trafficking involves the transit of people through illegal
channels with the intention of entering a state and evading its immigration laws. It has
now become one of the most utilised methods of travel for those travelling to Europe, due
to the restrictive nature of contemporary immigration and asylum policies. "For
friends and family, recourse to the human smugglers in the absence of legal methods of
entry into Europe may be the only way to protect relatives and loved ones from persecution
and death"(Fekete & Webber, 1997, p.69). "Migrants from Asia, Africa and the
Middle East are generally moved by ship, plane and truck relatively ‘soft’ to
entry points in Western Europe: from Morocco into Spain, from Albania into Italy or
Greece, from the Czech republic into Germany and from the Baltic states into
Scandinavia"(UNHCR, 1997, p.200-201). UNHCR (1997) goes on to state that Central
America, Mexico and the Caribbean have proven to be gateways to the USA and Canada, while
Taiwan and Thailand act as yielding points of entry to Japan, Europe and North America.
The organisation of this mode of travel and the route it takes,
requires a great deal of preparation. Illegal documents and passports must be purchased,
faked or stolen; air plane carriers, ships captains and truck drivers need to be paid; and
immigration officers and police must be bribed. Consequently, the journey is costly and
considering that an agent is usually involved to organise the trip he or she must also be
paid. The cost varies from $2,000 to about $4,000 respectively, depending on where you are
coming from and where you need to go. The Russian Mafia who for so long have been
trafficking drugs have now engaged in trafficking people.
An RTE programme Divided World (April 1998) traced the journey
of a number of individuals from Iraq and Iran who wished to get to France, Italy and
Germany to apply for asylum. It began in Istanbul which the program claims to be a
‘clearing house’ for hundreds of Kurds. The travellers made the initial contact
with the agent. He informed them that the first leg of their journey would cost $2,000
from Istanbul to Greece. The agent then organised a van to transport them on a journey
that took four hours. He positioned another car in front, equipping the driver with a
mobile phone so he could ring the agent in advance if he spotted an impending police
checkpoint. When they arrived at the Greek border they had to run for three hours across
fields before they reached the border. This route has not always proven to be successful
in the past and a number of these individuals had made several attempts, paying $2,000
each time.
Human trafficking is not exclusive to anyone in particular, it is
availed of by illegal immigrants, criminals, pimps and prostitutes and refugees. China is
the primary source of this flow of migrants and refugees. However, South Asia,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Sudan follow close behind. There are
hazards associated with this method of transport. Firstly, the person who is availing of
this service frequently puts their life into the hands of the agent. Subsequently the
agent can decide to kill them instead. NPA disclosed to me that this had occurred on a
number of occasions. Secondly, you can not always be assured that you will end up at the
destination you chose. There a case where an asylum seeker requested to be brought to
Canada and ended up in Ireland. Thirdly, women are especially vulnerable as they can be
raped and molested in transit by the agent. Given that the journey has been paid for by
illegal means, they are unable to request protection. It is worth mentioning again that
eighty percent of the worlds refugees are women and children and confined to refugee
camps. An insignificant number of these will be able to raise the capital to utilise the
services of an agent. Consequently, another channel or passage of flight is closed to the
rest.
References
Divided World, April (1998), RTE 1.
Fekete, L. & Webber, F. (1997) "The human trade," in Race
& Class, 39, 1.
UNHCR. (1997) The State of the World’s Refugees: A humanitarian agenda,
Oxford University Press. |