Friday, February 28, 2014

Using Drug Seizures as a Human Trafficking Indicator

I proposed in the previous blog to use drug seizure data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) to assist in measuring the level of state stability within each Kazakh province.[i] Drug trafficking flourishes in regions with low enforcement of the rule of law, and it is reasonable that human trafficking should also. Additionally, the human trafficking literature has suggested that drug traffickers have moved into moving humans alongside or instead of drugs, therefore anywhere we see a high incidence of drug trafficking, there could be a higher risk of the same agents engaging in human trafficking. To pursue the validity of this argument, I have gone through several articles on the subject, and I come away with preserved belief in the usefulness of drug trafficking as an indicator.
Shelley argues that drug trafficking often becomes entwined with human trafficking.[ii] Trafficked victims are often used as drug couriers went sent to foreign destinations, providing recipients with both the drugs and a victim to exploit. Aside from profiting on the sale, traffickers also utilize drugs throughout the entire trafficking process as a way to subdue the victim, increase endurance for longer work hours, and to discourage running way by facilitating victim addiction. Drug traffickers have been encouraged to move into the human trafficking market by increasing competition and danger within drug market, and low startup costs and risks in the human market. Traffickers generally seek a diversified source of profits, and human trafficking is extremely profitable.
The more recent expansion of the human trade has brought established drug organizations into human trafficking, rather than vice versa. These organizations already have considerable financial resources built up from the lucrative drug trade, and they are able to bring in logistical resources previously used for running drugs. These resources can be put to work moving both drugs and humans, creating more profitable economies of scale. Transport of humans is both more and less difficult than moving drugs. Moving people requires safe houses, adequate sustenance, and people are more difficult to hide. However, traffickers are often able to hide their victims in plain sight, within existing migration flows. Moreover, as discussed previously, trafficking victims are often lured willingly on false pretenses to their destinations before being seized by traffickers.
As important as the means of transport are, equally necessary are the facilitators working in the legitimate world. In both drug and human trafficking, criminal organizations must enlist the support of collaborators in border guards, law enforcement, immigration officials, lawyers, accountants, bankers, and real estate agents who provide the false travel documents, safe houses, laundering the profits, and turn a blind eye to successfully move their product. Shelley provides a persuasive argument for the likelihood of criminal involvement in both the drug and human trades simultaneously. High profits and lower risk should make human trafficking irresistible for such organizations. While different products, both require similar transport networks and official corruption that would allow established organizations to engage in both. Given the possibility of drug traffickers moving people along established drug routes, I have pursued further information regarding the drug trade in the region.
Townsend provides a detailed description of the drug trade in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan that brings opiates from Afghanistan north.[iii] His examination of Kazakhstan reveals several relevant details. After conducting field research in the early years of the 2000s, he saw a growing professionalism within the drug organizations, with increasingly streamlined transportation networks and more sophisticated methods of concealment. These organizations have discovered the routes of least resistance, particularly along the porous Kyrgyz/Kazakh border. Traffickers can both walk across and bring large vehicles through, within the established networks of fuel smuggling from Kazakhstan.
The main crossings are to the north and west of Bishkek (see map at bottom), where they continue on to Almaty, taking advantage both of better roads and the large consumer market in the Almaty province. Opiates are stockpiled outside the city, and then broken down to supply low-level dealers. From Almaty, drugs are distributed further along the Almaty-Taldyqorghan-Georgievka and Almaty-Balkash-Astana roads. Almaty also provides access to rail networks, both northwest to Astana and north to Georgievka, each with links to Russia. Organizations both use established routes repeatedly and switch quickly between available options, as dictated by destination, geography, law enforcement, and the adaptability of their transport links. The geography of Kyrgyzstan requires that all traffic heading from Osh to Bishkek to use the same road for much of the route, whereas traffickers crossing the more open areas of Kazakhstan have more choices. Additionally, a trend that has likely increased since Townsend published in 2006 is the expansion of the drug trade to the Xinjiang province in western China, which has had a large and growing market. At the time of publication, heroin prices in Xinjiang were 4-5 times higher than in Central Asia, and the markets are much closer and more accessible than those in Western Russia or Europe. Townsend theorized that the crossings at Khorgos and Dostuk along the Kazakh/China border would be likely targets.
Townsend provides additional detail that is important to understanding the intricacies of the drug trade, and likely of the human trade, in Central Asia. However, he disagrees that drug organizations could easily move into human trafficking. “Human trafficking is quite a different business again and given the logistics of drug trafficking described here, it is difficult to believe that the same groups moving opiates would also be optimized for organizing illegal immigration.” Yet, he does agree that the same official facilitators are necessary to traffic both. Based on his conclusions, it is safe to say that while I cannot automatically assume that active drug traffickers in Kazakhstan are also likely engaged in human trafficking, I can conclude that the facilitating factors that enable the drug trade will also enable the human trade. Therefore, any province with a high incidence of drug trafficking will be at a higher risk of human trafficking due to the existence of these risk factors in the area.




[i] http://drugsmonitoring.unodc-roca.org
[ii] Shelley, Louise. 2012. The Relationship of Drug and Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
[iii] Townsend, Jacob. 2006. “The Logistics of Opiate Trafficking in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.” China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 4(1), 69-91


Friday, February 14, 2014

Breakdown of Global Slavery Index Methodology


                As I will be using the methodology of the Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index (GSI) as a guide to developing a human trafficking risk index at the provincial level for Kazakhstan, I will go through and explain the GSI methodology, and point out possible corollaries that I could use within my own methodology. Moreover, I will need to continually updating and revising it to reflect data availability and applicability. Part of the goal of this post is to obtain feedback on the usefulness/accuracy of suggested indicators, and to seek assistance in locating sources of relevant data that I have overlooked, so please comment with any suggestions.
                The GSI establishes a level of risk by country based on 33 quantitative indicators divided across five general dimensions: slavery policy, human rights, development, state stability, and women’s rights and discrimination. I will go through each and expand on their indicators, with an eye to how I could  apply the same or similar within my own methodology. Key to my ability to incorporate an indicator is the likelihood that it varies across the Kazakh provinces, national policies that generally affect each province equally is unlikely to provide any useful insight into the difference in risk between provinces. Additionally, I must be able to obtain data on that indicator at the provincial level, either through publicly available sources or through direct request from the Kazakh or local provincial governments.
                Slavery Policy is composed of the seven indicator variables: prevention, prosecution, protection, law enforcement training, migration regulation, monitoring of labor practices, and parallel legal system. Prosecution, protection and prevention are based on a scale developed in Cho, Dreher, & Neumeyer’s “The Determinants of Anti-trafficking Policies - Evidence from a New Index” (2012).[1] Prosecution measures “whether the country has legislative and other measures to establish criminal offences for trafficking in persons, in line with the definition provided by the (UN) Anti-trafficking Protocol; whether such legislative and other measures are appropriately and effectively enforced.” Protection measures “whether the country protects the human rights of victims of trafficking; identifies them; and provides for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking by legislative and other measures.” Prevention measures whether the country establishes and practices comprehensive policies, programs and other measures to prevent and combat trafficking in persons.” Kazakh provincial data replicating these measures is not readily available. However, through both qualitative research into the Kazakh legal system regarding human trafficking (of particular significance will be whether trafficking is prosecuted at the federal or provincial level, if at all), a simplified version may be adaptable to my methodology.
                The next three within Slavery Policy are law enforcement training, migration regulation to limit trafficking, and the monitoring of labor practices, which are based on the US Dept. of State’s “Trafficking in Persons Report 2013”.[2] Law enforcement training in human trafficking and the monitoring of labor practices may differ significantly between provinces, and could be obtainable by request through the provincial governments. While migration regulations specifically is more federal policy and unlikely to differ by province, information on the number of migrants by province could prove useful and also could be possible to obtain through request.
                The final variable within Slavery Policy is the existence of a parallel legal system that endangers the rights of minorities, based on the “World Factbook” published by the Central Intelligence Agency.[3] As with migration policy, the legal system is unlikely to differ significantly between provinces, but further research may reveal otherwise.
                Human Rights is composed of seven more indicators: access to legal and property rights, civil liberties, political rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and worker’s rights. Access to legal and property rights is based on the “International Property Rights Index” published by the Property Rights Alliance.[4] The civil liberties and political rights variables are from the Freedom House rankings.[5] The three freedom and the worker’s rights variables vary based on the protection of each as measured by the “Human Rights Data Project” by CIRI.[6] All of these measures are generally federal in nature and while the enforcement of federal law may differ significantly across the provinces, it will be difficult to capture through publicly accessible data and unlikely to be monitored by the provinces. It could be possible through qualitative sources such as LexisNexis to get an idea on where violations of political and worker rights have occurred based on media reports.
                Development consists of nine indicators: access to financial services, cell phone users, credit information, international debt, internet activity, GDP per capita in terms of purchasing power parity (GDP-PPP), the Human Development Index (HDI), literacy, and social safety net. The first six are all based on World Bank measures.[7] The HDI comes from the dataset compiled by the UN Development Programme.[8] Literacy is a scale based on data from the CIA’s “World Factbook”. Finally, social safety net scores are measured by the International Labor Organization.[9] All of these variables differ between provinces in Kazakhstan, yet not all will likely be accessible. The Kazakh government provides both internet activity and literacy by province. GDP-PPP is not available, however basic income data is, which should be an adequate replacement. Access to financial services and cell phone users may be accessible via a request to the federal or provincial governments. Credit information and HDI would likely be difficult to accurately measure by province, and international debt and social safety net are federal measures that are unlikely to differ significantly by province.
                State Stability is composed of seven variables: corruption, governance, independence of judiciary, peace index, weapons access, political instability, and violent crime. Corruption varies from highly corrupt to clean based on Transparency International’s “Corruption Perceptions Index”.[10] Governance ranges from weak to strong based on the World Bank’s “Governance Indicators.”[11] Independence of judiciary scores are again from the “Human Rights Data Project” by CIRI. Provided by the Vision of Humanity’s “Global Peace Index”, both the peace index ranges from most to least peaceful, and weapons access from low to high access).[12] Political instability varies from no to high vulnerability as measured by The Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Political Instability Index”.[13] The last, violent crime, measures the homicide rate per 100,000 population as compiled by the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC).[14] All of these indicators could provide important differentiation between provinces, yet only crime is readily available at the provincial level. Of the remaining six, independence of judiciary, the peace index, weapons access and political instability would probably be very difficult to obtain and may not differ significantly across provinces. Corruption and governance will also be difficult to obtain, but could be very valuable as they likely differ considerably across provinces and both have a strong influence on the prevalence of human trafficking. I will continue to look for additional sources of data for both. Additionally, the UNODC’s “Drugs Monitoring” platform provides information on drug trafficking seizures by province that could be a valuable indicator of state capability and reach.[15]
                The final dimension, Women’s Rights and Discrimination, contains the Gini coefficient, women’s economic rights, and women’s political rights. The Gini coefficient measures income inequality as reported by the World Bank.[16] Women’s economic and political rights are scored from no rights to nearly all, again from the “Human Rights Data Project” by CIRI. Of these three the Gini coefficient is readily available by province. Both measures of women’s rights would be valuable, but none of the data I have been able to find at the provincial level differentiates between men and women, but perhaps through a direct request to the Kazakh statistics agency.



[1] http://www.economics-human-trafficking.org/data-and-reports.html
[2] http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2013/
[3] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
[4] http://www.internationalpropertyrightsindex.org/
[5] http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2013#.Uv0ZvtxdXIc
[6] http://www.humanrightsdata.org/
[8] http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/hdi
[9] http://www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/world-social-security-report/lang--en/index.htm
[10] http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results#myAnchor1
[11] http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/worldwide-gove
[12] http://www.visionofhumanity.org/#/page/about-gpi
[13] http://viewswire.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=social_unrest_table&page=noads
[14] http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html
[15] http://drugsmonitoring.unodc-roca.org/
[16] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI

Saturday, February 1, 2014

An Introduction to Human Trafficking in Central Asia, and the Global Slavery Index


An Introduction to Human Trafficking in Central Asia, and the Global Slavery Index

A definition of human trafficking from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC):
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

In 2012, the International Organization on Migration provided statistics in their annual report on human trafficking globally (IOM, 2013):
“IOM has globally provided assistance to individual trafficked persons on 6,394 occasions in
2012. Most of these persons (77%) are adults aged 18 and over, whereas the rest (23%) were minors. Over half (55%) of these individuals are female, and less than half are males (45%). Over two fifths of Individuals have been assisted by IOM after having been trafficked for the purpose of forced labor (43%), over a fifth for domestic servitude (22%), under a fifth after sexual exploitation (19%), a tenth for other or unknown reasons (10%), and less than 3% each for begging (2.6%), combined labor and sexual exploitation (2.3%), and low level criminal activity (.9%). In 2012, individuals were mostly trafficked across borders (73%), but over a fourth also experienced internal trafficking (27%).”

Contemporary numbers on trafficking victims can vary widely due to the underground nature of the phenomena, a lack of cooperation from many source and destination states, and difficulties in locating and contacting victims. The International Labor Organization estimates that 20.9 million people worldwide are victims of trafficking as of 2012,[1] with the State Department citing up to 27 million per year (USD 2013). Other governmental organizations such as the UNODC rarely state worldwide numbers. Specific to Central Asia, number estimates are even harder to come by. The Regional Central Asia Conference in 2006, organized jointly by the OSCE and Republic of Kazakhstan, cited estimates “that about 5,000 victims are trafficked annually from Kazakhstan, between 3,000 and 4,000 victims are trafficked from the Kyrgyz Republic, and between 1,000 and 2,000 women are trafficked annually from Tajikistan to foreign countries” (OSCE 2006).

Sulaimanova and Jackson discuss the lack of data in Central Asia concerning sex trafficking.  There are several likely causes: “in Central Asia, the trafficking of women is a new phenomenon” (Sulaimanova, 2004), “prior to 1991, there were virtually no reported cases of trafficking in women from the former Soviet republics to the West” (Sulaimanova, 2006) and “until recently, both governments and societies in Central Asia preferred to ignore the issue. In the predominantly Muslim societies of the region, it is almost taboo to openly discuss the trafficking of women for prostitution” (Jackson 2006).

The Walk Free Foundation has taken a significant step in rectifying the dearth of data on human trafficking with their recently released Global Slavery Index.[2] Beyond simply human trafficking, the foundation broadly includes slavery, as referring “to the condition of treating another person as if they were property – something to be bought, sold, traded or even destroyed.” The index provides a view of ‘modern slavery’ across the globe by ranking 162 countries based on three primary factors: the estimated portion of the population victimized by modern slavery within a country, the number of child marriages, and the level of human trafficking in and out of a country. These rankings are designed to indicate the estimated prevalence of modern slavery in each country, a snapshot of the estimated population currently enslaved. Data for the index was obtained from various sources. To generate the slavery estimate by country, both secondary sources were used, such as governmental and NGO reports, or media reporting, and representative random sample surveys conducted in a small number of countries. Data from these limited surveys was then extrapolated to neighboring countries without survey data. How appropriate this methodology was is questionable, additional information should be provided on the guidelines used to gauge the level of accuracy such extrapolation would likely achieve. Finally, child marriage numbers were obtained from UNICEF, and the level of human trafficking in and out of the country from the US State Department’s ‘Trafficking in Persons’ report.

Sources:
IOM. 2013. IOM 2012 Case Data on Human Trafficking: Global Figures and Trends. Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
Jackson, Nicole J. 2006. "The Trafficking of Narcotics, Arms and Humans in Post-Soviet Central Asia: (Mis)perceptions, Policies and Realities." Central Asian Survey 39-52.
OSCE. 2006. "Trafficking in Persons in Central Asia: The Scope of the Problem and the Appropriate Responses." Regional Central Asia Conference “Combating Trafficking in Human Beings – Regional Response”. Astana: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Sulaimanova, Saltanat. 2004. "Migration Trends in Central Asia and the Case of Trafficking of Women." In In the Tracks of Tamerlane: Central Asia's Path to the 21st Century, by eds. Dan Burghart and Theresa Sabonis-Helf, 377-400. Washington, DC: National Defense University.
Sulaimanova, Saltanat. 2006. "Trafficking in Women from the Former Soviet Union for the Purposes of Sexual Exploitation." In Trafficking and the Global Sex Industry, by eds. Karen Beeks and Delila Amir, 61-76. Oxford: Lexington Books.
UNODC. 2012. Global Report on Trafficking in Persons. Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
USD. 2013. Trafficking in Persons Report. Washington, DC: US State Department.