Trafficking in migrants: a european perspective

This essay, first of all, seeks to answer questions related to the problem of the traffic of migrants in Europe: are there organised criminal groups active in the continent who concern themselves with human trafficking and if so which groups? How do they organise their traffic? Which routes are most widely used in order to perform this criminal activity? These questions will be dealt with under a particular light: while answering them, the author will try to give a framework, though very general, of the role played in these scenarios by Western, Central and Eastern European states, sometimes as sending, sometimes as transit or destination countries. The analysis is also projected towards the comprehension of those which are the most common illicit conducts performed by organised criminals while trafficking migrants. Since the beginning, it seems noteworthy to highlight a particular point of view under which the phenomenon of traffic in human beings can be analysed and which can explain why in this context the attention of the author is mainly focused on well-organised criminal groups. There appears to be reason to believe that this illegal traffic, when it involves organised criminal organisations, is very dangerous especially because it links an international criminal dimension to a local one. In fact, the more the traffic is organised, the more it seems to exist in illegal circuits that, starting from the traffic of migrants, come to the exploitation of these people in the local criminal markets of the destination countries. It is to say that very often trafficked people, once arrived in their host countries, are pushed by the organised trafficking groups into deviant or criminal markets, such as those of drug pushing, prostitution, begging or theft, very often as a mechanism for repaying the cost of being smuggled. The second part of this essay sets some guidelines in order to build up a feasible and comprehensive strategy, at the European regional level, to fight the international migrant trafficking. In particular, it suggests to design some countryby-country tailor-made interventions. The devising of such instruments should not only be focused on criminal law but should start from a consideration: some Central and Eastern European countries are the main sending countries or seem to be chosen as transit places from which to gather migrants before moving on towards the West; while Western European countries, on their part, are mainly receivers of illegal migration flow.