By Daphné Bouteillet-Paquet

Migrant smuggling has been an issue of increasing concern. The negative consequences of this type of transnational crime include the erosion of state sovereignty and the loss of control over who enters and leaves the territory, the potential security implications of clandestine entries and document smuggling, the large profits that accrue to human smugglers and organized criminal groups, the increasingly brutal treatment of migrants by careless smugglers leading to a growing number of deaths by drowning, dehydration, freezing or suffocation, and the high smuggling fees that migrants have to pay for the illegal transfer to destination countries, often leading to high debts for smuggled migrants and making them vulnerable to exploitation and human trafficking. Despite the fact that migrant smuggling has attracted great media and political attention over the last two decades, there has not been any comprehensive analysis of the state of expert knowledge. Great confusion still prevails about what is migrant smuggling within the global context of irregular migration.

Vienna: United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, 2011. 148p.

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