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


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