Crime Reduction Toolkits

Trafficking of People

Distinguishing Trafficking, Migration and Smuggling

Illegal migration and smuggling are not trafficking in persons.

Migration is where a person moves from one country to another. It can be by legal or illegal means and it can be either voluntary (with the consent of the person migrating) or forced (without their consent).

Smuggling is the transport of a person (with their consent) to another country through illegal means:

Trafficking as a whole has three core elements:

• movement of a person

• with deception or coercion

• into a situation of exploitation

By far the vast majority of people entering the UK illegally are smuggled rather than trafficked. People smuggling is the facilitation of illegal entry, in breach of immigration law, either clandestinely or through deception or the use of false documentation. In this sense “smuggling” refers to the illegal transport of a person or persons across state borders, which results in a benefit for the smuggler. It follows that the person smuggled will be complicit, often paying large amounts of money to be transported, and once in the country they wish to enter will be left to their own devices.

“Trafficking”, on the other hand, specifically targets the trafficked person as an object of exploitation. The purpose from the beginning of the process is to exploit this person and to gain a profit. It follows that “deception” and “coercion” both play a major role in trafficking. For example, in some cases women trafficked for sexual exploitation may have known that they were going to work in the sex industry, and have agreed to this on the basis that they would earn a decent wage and be able to help support their family at home. What they did not realise was that all or most of their income would be taken by their traffickers, that they may be severely limited in their personal freedom and in many cases that they would be subjected to physical and sexual violence.

In practice, it may be quite difficult to make an initial distinction between smuggling and trafficking. In some cases the person may think they are being smuggled, but are in fact being trafficked, as they are unaware of their fate. Equally, trafficking often does include an element of smuggling, namely the illicit crossing of a border. However, there are also elements of trafficking within a country as the traffickers move victims between locations and sometimes sell them to another organisation.