Migrant Smuggling Issue Papers
UNODC's Anti-Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Unit offers occasional Issue Papers on aspects of the crime of migrant smuggling and the global response to it. Issue Papers bring together expertise from practitioners around the world in an effort to support information sharing between those working in various capacities to prevent migrant smuggling, protect smuggled migrants and prosecute those who commit the crime.
This Issue Paper offers a brief overview of the crime of migrant smuggling. It explains aspects of the crime as defined in the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air (Smuggling of Migrants Protocol) supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The paper also explores how the crime of migrant smuggling is committed, the roles played by individual criminal actors in the process ,and explains the difference between migrant smuggling and the distinct but related crime of human trafficking.
This Issue Paper is the result of an expert group meeting held in Vienna in December 2009, which brought together expert practitioners from all over the world. This Issue Paper explores the particular modus operandi of smuggling migrants by air and touches upon the various challenges involved in addressing this issue. The paper also offers some recommendations about strengthening and coordinating response to this issue.
The purpose of this Issue Paper is to capture expertise from a range of experiences of both countries of origin, countries of transit and countries of destination for the purpose of increasing understanding of the issue and the challenge of addressing it. The overall goal of the issue paper is to provide a global perspective on the issue of migrant smuggling by sea, examining the framework in which it is addressed, the key challenges inherent therein and to recommend concrete measures that can be taken to strengthen response in this respect.
Issue Paper: Transnational Organized Crime in the Fishing Industry - Focus on Trafficking in Persons, Smuggling of Migrants, Illicit Drugs Trafficking
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