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WORK TITLE: Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior
WORK NOTES: with Tuesday Raitano
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://ptinti.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://globalinitiative.net/network/peter-tinti/ * https://www.linkedin.com/in/petertinti/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist, writer, and researcher. Works as an independent journalist; Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, Geneva, Switzerland, senior research fellow. Also worked as a consulting producer for VICE, Home Box Office (HBO).
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, Independent, New York Times, Telegraph, Vice, Wall Street Journal, and World Politics Review.
SIDELIGHTS
Peter Tinti is an independent journalist and a research fellow at an organization that follows international organized crime. He previously reported from West Africa, with his writing appearing in various periodicals. Tinti has also worked as a consulting producer for Home Box Office (HBO) and in 2013 was included on Action on Armed Violence’s “Top 100: The Most Influential Journalists Covering Armed Violence.”
Tinti is coauthor with Tuesday Reitano of Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior. The book examines the largely overlooked phenomenon of criminal networks amassing billions of dollars by facilitating the transport of migrants and refugees seeking safe passage to Europe. For the most part, these people are fleeing violent conflicts and repressive governments, as well as high poverty levels. “The business surrounding the refugee crisis is without parallel,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor.
Often, the criminal organizations have little concern for human rights and sometimes have increased the suffering of those fleeing to other countries. These smugglers carry out their activities in a wide ranging area, from the Mediterranean Sea to various smuggling routes across the Sahara desert, the Balkans, and hidden segments of Europe’s capitals. Reitano and Tinti point to Belgrade, Serbia, as one of the centers of a developed smuggling economy. The authors discuss other places and people as well, such as the Libyan gangs whose rundown boats provide a risky form of transport and the forgery industry that is growing rapidly in Lebanon.
Tinti and Reitano point out that, despite being part of a criminal underworld, the smugglers are often looked upon as saviors by the people they transport. On the other hand, as the authors stress, some of the migrants are induced to perform criminal activities, such as smuggling and prostitution. Nevertheless, Tinti and Reitano also write that the international system has often failed to come to the aid of migrants and refugees.
Placing the increasing movement of large swaths of people within an economic context, Tinti and Reitano point out the smuggling industry has grown largely out of the advance of the global economy, which they believe requires people to relocate but has few legal resources for them to do so in such vast numbers. The authors write the international community no longer appears to have the ability to make the massive, necessary changes needed to help migrants and protect them from smugglers. Tinti and Reitano also stress that many of the smugglers have become part of the organized smuggling efforts so they can forge a better life for themselves as they also often face poverty.
“The book’s key contention–that tighter rules inspire entrepreneurs to create new, more dangerous and criminal smuggling routes–is persuasive,” wrote a contributor to the Economist, who went on to point out: “Although the blistering criticism of European policy seems right, a section at the end which brings in American policy is weaker.” New Internationalist contributor Vanessa Byrd remarked: “The authors … present a complex and nuanced picture, a spectrum of those involved in the people-smuggling industry.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Economist, October 22, 2016, “Making Profits Out of Hope; Migrants,” p. 74(US).
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2017, review of Migrant, Refugee, Summer, Savior.
New Internationalist, October, 2016, Vanessa Baird, review of Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour, p. 43.
Publishers Weekly, February 13, 2017, review of Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior, p. 65.
ONLINE
African Arguments Website, http://africanarguments.org/ (October 18, 2016), review of Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior.
Financial Times Online, https://www.ft.com (November 14, 2016), Siona Jenkins, review of Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior.
Global Initiative website, http://globalinitiative.net/ (October 30, 2017), brief author profile.
Peter Tinti website, https://ptinti.com (October 30, 2017).
Peter Tinti is an independent journalist and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Among other outlets, Tinti’s writing and photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Vice, World Politics Review, Christian Science Monitor, Al Jazeera, The Independent, and The Telegraph. He has also worked as a consulting producer for VICE on HBO. In 2013, Action On Armed Violence included Tinti in its list “Top 100: The most influential journalists covering armed violence.”
Peter Tinti is an independent journalist and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. Formerly based in West Africa, his writing, reporting and photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy and Vice, among other outlets.
Peter Tinti
Senior Research Fellow, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime
BIOGRAPHY
Peter Tinti is a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and independent journalist, focusing on conflict, human rights and organized crime. As part of his work for the Global Initiative, Tinti has written and contributed to several reports on organized crime in the Sahel, narcotics trafficking in Mali, and migrant smuggling networks in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
In addition to his work for the Global Initiative, Tinti’s writing and photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Vice, among other outlets. Tinti’s work covering the conflict in Mali earned him recognition by Action on Armed Violence, which included him on its list titled, “Top 100: The most influential journalists covering armed violence.”
His forthcoming book on the smuggling networks behind Europe’s migration crisis, Migrant, Refugee; Smuggler, Savior, co-authored with Tuesday Reitano, will be published by Hurst Publishers in September 2016.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
“Survive and Advance: The Economics of Migrant Smuggling into Europe,” The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime / Institute for Security Studies, 1 December 2015.
“Illicit Trafficking and Instability in Mali: Past, Present and Future,” The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, January 2014.
“Making sense of the Mali attack,” Politico, 23 November 2015.
“Ghosts of Boko Haram: How Nigerian Refugees Are Coping in the Wake of the Baga Massacre,” Vice, 19 May 2015.
“A Postcard from Guantánamo: How Mohamedou Ould Slahi Became a Suspected Terrorist, Then a Best-Selling Author,” Vice, 26 Feb 2015.
“Tackling Ebola, One Broadcast at a Time,” Foreign Policy, 9 October 2014.
“The Toxic Politics of Ebola,” Foreign Policy, 6 October 2014.
“The US and France Are Teaming Up to Fight A Sprawling War on Terror in Africa,” VICE News, 15 September 2014.
“The New French Militarism in the Sahel,” Medium, 11 September 2014.
“On Africa’s Human Trafficking Trail,” The Wall Street Journal, 7 May 2014.
“War, Peace and Civil Affairs in Niger,” The Wall Street Journal, 6 March 2014.
“Mali 2.0,” Foreign Policy, 23 September 2013.
“’Baghdad’ and “Gaza’ in Guinea,” The Wall Street Journal, 4 July 2013.
“Meet the Waraba Battalion,” The Wall Street Journal, 9 June 2013.
“The Jihadi from the Block,” Foreign Policy, 19 March 2013.
“In Mali, the Peril of Guerrilla War Looms,” The New York Times, 16 February 2013.
“Mali War Shifts as Rebels Hide in High Sahara,” The New York Times, 9 February 2013.
Peter Tinti is an independent journalist focusing on conflict, security, human rights, and organized crime.
He is the author, with Tuesday Reitano, of Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior.
Among other outlets, Tinti’s writing and photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Vice, Politico, World Politics Review, Christian Science Monitor, Al Jazeera, The Independent, and The Telegraph. He has also worked as a consulting producer for VICE on HBO.
In 2013, Action On Armed Violence included Tinti in its list “Top 100: The most influential journalists covering armed violence.”
e: tinti.peter@gmail.com / t: @petertinti / ig: @ptinti
portfolio
A short list of works that highlight my writing and reporting for a variety of publications. You can find pretty much all of my other published work in the “blog” section of this site.
2017
“Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior,” Oxford University Press, 4 April 2017.
“In Niger, anti-smuggling efforts risk trading one crisis for another,” African Arguments, 14 January 2017.
2016
“Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour,” C. Hurst & Co, 6 October 2016.
“Boko Haram,” VICE on HBO, 5 Feburary 2016.
2015
“Making sense of the Mali attack,” Politico, 23 November 2015.
“Ghosts of Boko Haram: How Nigerian Refugees Are Coping in the Wake of the Baga Massacre,” Vice, 19 May 2015.
“Lines in the Sand,” VICE on HBO, 27 March 2015.
“A Postcard from Guantánamo: How Mohamedou Ould Slahi Became a Suspected Terrorist, Then a Best-Selling Author,” Vice, 26 Feb 2015.
2014
“Tackling Ebola, One Broadcast at a Time,” Foreign Policy, 9 October 2014.
“The Toxic Politics of Ebola,” Foreign Policy, 6 October 2014.
“The US and France Are Teaming Up to Fight A Sprawling War on Terror in Africa,” VICE News, 15 September 2014.
“The New French Militarism in the Sahel,” Medium, 11 September 2014.
“On Africa’s Human Trafficking Trail,” The Wall Street Journal, 7 May 2014.
“War, Peace and Civil Affairs in Niger,” The Wall Street Journal, 6 March 2014.
2013
“Africa Express Strikes the Right Notes,” The Wall Street Journal, 24 October 2013.
“Mali 2.0,” Foreign Policy, 23 September 2013.
“’Baghdad’ and “Gaza’ in Guinea,” The Wall Street Journal, 4 July 2013.
“Meet the Waraba Battalion,” The Wall Street Journal, 9 June 2013.
“The Jihadi from the Block,” Foreign Policy, 19 March 2013.
“In Mali, the Peril of Guerrilla War Looms,” The New York Times, 16 February 2013.
“Mali War Shifts as Rebels Hide in High Sahara,” The New York Times, 9 February 2013.
Tinti, Peter: MIGRANT, REFUGEE, SMUGGLER, SAVIOR
(Feb. 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Tinti, Peter MIGRANT, REFUGEE, SMUGGLER, SAVIOR Oxford Univ. (Adult Nonfiction) $29.95 4, 1 ISBN: 978-0-19-066859-4
Advocacy journalism in the service of the refugees, most from Africa and the Middle East, who are now flooding Europe."At no time in history have so many people attempted to cross international borders without authorization," write Tinti, a research fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, and Reitano, the founder of that organization, "and at no time has a collection of democratic governments purportedly committed to human rights and international law gone to such inhumane lengths to stop them." Although some of the efforts to stop this traffic have legal and historical precedent, whether simply turning refugees back at the border or hounding them from places of refuge, the business surrounding the refugee crisis is without parallel. This economy of exile, so to speak, is a huge business, with numerous centers. One is Belgrade, the launching point for great columns of refugees seeking to make their way to Western Europe or Scandinavia; the Serbian capital is now the host of a sophisticated smuggling economy that, by the authors' account, is not quite as thuggish as "the criminal entrepreneurs operating in small border towns." The authors traverse the trans-Mediterranean smuggling routes, describing the Libyan gangs and their fleets of utterly unseaworthy craft and the highly developing forgery industry of Lebanon, which manufactures fake passports and visas far faster than the understaffed U.N. can sort out. As they write, "identifying a fake that has been printed on real Syrian passport books with real equipment is very difficult." While a few humanitarians figure in these pages, most of the actors are predators preying on some of the most vulnerable people on Earth--and most of the illegal migration economy is fueled by those who are unwanted, without skills or the ability to fill anything other than the lowest service jobs. Sobering reading but of great interest to those seeking context for so many recent headlines.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Tinti, Peter: MIGRANT, REFUGEE, SMUGGLER, SAVIOR." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480921824&it=r&asid=1b72270ab6003b4cc386008fa928130b. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480921824
Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior
264.7 (Feb. 13, 2017): p65.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior
Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano. Oxford Univ., $29.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-19-066859-4
In this orderly and well-argued study, journalist Tinti and organized crime expert Reitano state that smuggling networks for migrants have arisen due to a global economy in which "necessity demands movement but few legal options are available." Global mobility, they believe, has "outpaced the international community's capacity to make the necessary changes." The result is a complex market for human smuggling. This book, described as "somewhere between a work of journalism and social science," gives a detailed overview of this shadow economy, including the specifics of how migrants seeking better lives are suborned into drug smuggling and prostitution. The book is dense and fact-filled, yet full of human interest thanks to case studies of people like Esther, who hired smugglers to help her get from Nigeria to Libya and then to Spain only to find herself in servitude to human traffickers. The authors' goal is to inform readers and move official policy in a more humane direction. Part one defines terms such as refugee, migrant, asylum-seeker, smuggling, and human trafficking, and examines the mechanisms of movement. Part two looks at the smuggling operations in various countries. Syria is a focus, but so are Libya, Egypt, and Turkey. This plea for better legal options should be essential reading for policymakers. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior." Publishers Weekly, 13 Feb. 2017, p. 65. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA482198216&it=r&asid=ea77e620fecfdadac3d58efb28d6a42e. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A482198216
Making profits out of hope; Migrants
421.9012 (Oct. 22, 2016): p74(US).
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated
http://store.eiu.com/
On our way
Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour. By Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano. Hurst; 331 pages.
A DEFINING image of the new wave of globalisation--and the attempts to hold it back--is a newly arrived migrant on a European beach, clutching a mobile phone and hoping for a new life. Never before have rich countries raised their walls so high to keep out refugees and the poor. Yet never have people tried so hard to leap over them anyway.
The most important causes of this migration are wars in places like Syria and Somalia, and demography and poor prospects across Africa and the Middle East. New enablers are vital too: mobile phones, the internet, WhatsApp and Facebook. What is less understood is how business has changed this world. In "Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour", Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano, both researchers, explain how the numbers of people arriving in Europe have been made possible because of the emergence of innovative and opportunistic entrepreneurs.
People-smuggling is just another part of the vast decentralised organised-crime economy. Those in the trade are not necessarily evil or part of a grand conspiracy: they are ordinary folk drawn into organised crime by profits and the prospect of a better life. And policies, particularly in Europe, that are intended to stop migration often have the effect only of rendering it more exploitative and dangerous.
To make this argument, the authors leap around, with vivid reporting from Niger, Libya, the Balkans, Turkey and Egypt, among other places. Their primary focus is not the migrants, but the smugglers--the people who make it possible to get to countries without a visa or a passport. Crackdowns and demand stimulate supply. Both in Turkey and Libya, it was Syrian refugees--and their ability to pay tens of thousands of dollars--that drove smugglers to develop sophisticated systems. Some refugees are even given bar codes to scan when they arrive in Europe, which help release their payments from escrow. These were built on existing systems, particularly the hawala networks of informal money transfer used by merchants across the developing world.
The book's key contention--that tighter rules inspire entrepreneurs to create new, more dangerous and criminal smuggling routes--is persuasive. But it could be more so. Although the blistering criticism of European policy seems right, a section at the end which brings in American policy is weaker. The authors are certainly right that crackdowns on the border with Mexico have created business for criminal cartels. But they are on weaker ground when they suggest it has not deterred migrants. Partly for economic reasons, more Mexicans return from America than go the other way.
That sort of outcome may eventually be the result of Europe's shift against migrants too. People-smugglers may well be saviours to some of their clients. But they are exploiters of plenty of others. In the long run death and danger does deter. The more criminal the networks are, the more they will be shunned.
Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour.
By Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Making profits out of hope; Migrants." The Economist, 22 Oct. 2016, p. 74(US). General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA467196560&it=r&asid=3424d1de5c3a6c927cd795cd6917f37e. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A467196560
Migrant, refugee, smuggler, saviour
Vanessa Baird
.496 (Oct. 2016): p43.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 New Internationalist
http://www.newint.org
Migrant, refugee, smuggler, saviour
by Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano (Hurst, ISBN 9781849046800)
The real villains of the migration crisis are the smugglers, right? They are the ones who cram hapless refugees into unseaworthy boats or airless containers, who extort and exploit, right?
Think again. Or maybe, just think. Which is what Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitana get us to do with their eye-opening investigation. The authors, who work with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, present a complex and nuanced picture, a spectrum of those involved in the people-smuggling industry, from the trusted 'family business' networks, to the less common, but more publicized, evil cartels and criminal gangs.
Through personal stories, they show us refugees who are grateful to their smugglers; a good reputation is good for business. The smuggling industry is meeting a global demand. But, as the writers observe: 'In a neoliberal world... it is often the criminals who help the most desperate of us.'
There are also truly evil bastards who rape and exploit and torture and kill. And, ironically, in a world full of unintended consequences, it is these violent operators that are benefiting from 'tougher' policies. Only they have the finance, logistics and ruthlessness to get around higher barriers and increased 'criminal justice solutions' that target smugglers.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The authors are clear that the current international system is broken, and only policies that address the demand for passage from zones of war and poverty into ones that offer greater security offer the slightest hope of success.
Tinti and Reitano also expose the cynical conflation of smuggling (getting people from a to b) with trafficking (slavery) as 'hoping to operationalize universal disapproval of human trafficking to gain support for policies that are really intended to stem migrant and refugee flows'.
Powerful analysis, groundbreaking research, vividly and journalistically expressed. This is a must-read for policymakers --and anyone who wants a more truthful approach to a defining story of our age.
***** VB
hurstpublishers.com
***** EXCELLENT
**** GOOD
*** FAIR
** POOR
* APPALLING
REVIEWS EDITOR: Vanessa Baird email: vanessab@newint.org
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Baird, Vanessa. "Migrant, refugee, smuggler, saviour." New Internationalist, Oct. 2016, p. 43. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464046428&it=r&asid=5dfce41f915f6bef417b5128ba7fe89d. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A464046428
Review: Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour – by Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano
By James WanOctober 18, 20160
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European leaders conflating human traffickers and human smugglers is not just inaccurate. It speaks to the ignorance and/or deliberate manipulation of facts at the heart of their policy responses.
The vast majority of refugees and migrants attempting to reach Europe have done so by sea. Credit: Ggia.
As the mass movement of refugees and migrants to Europe has continued apace − with nearly 350,000 arriving in 2016 to date − officials and leaders have frequently spoken of the urgent need to clamp down on human traffickers. In countless statements and speeches, leaders and ministers have repeatedly made clear their belief that at the heart of the biggest movement of people in Europe since WW2, there lies an “evil trade” plied by “callous gangs”.
When French President François Hollande vowed to dismantle the Calais “Jungle” – an informal camp from which many people try to slip into the UK – he vowed to traffickers “you won’t be trafficking any more”. Meanwhile, in addressing the refugee crisis, former UK PM David Cameron insisted on the need to be “going after the criminal gangs, going after the traffickers, going after the owners of the boats”.
However, while the message of this rhetoric is clear − bad guys, beware − what is much less clear is who exactly it is directed towards.
Because whether through ignorance or carelessness, European politicians and the media have consistently confused “human traffickers” and “human smugglers”. Sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably, and sometimes officials simply say traffickers when they really mean smugglers.
This is not a question of semantics. The two concepts are completely different.
Human trafficking necessarily involves coercion and exploitation and can happen within a single country. The most prevalent examples involve kidnapped women and children being sexually exploited, forced into labour, or used in the illegal organ trade. It truly is an “evil trade”.
Whereas by contrast, human smuggling is a consensual exchange in which a person agrees to be moved across a border, whether by land, air or sea. It is also illegal. It can also be dangerous and involve exploitation. Moreover, sometimes smugglers turn out to be traffickers in disguise.
But the two practices are wholly different, and when politicians use the terms interchangeably, they are conflating the unequivocally exploitative acts of kidnap, rape and enslavement with the much more morally ambiguous act of unlawfully transporting people in need − a practice that thousands rely on every week in their attempts to enter Fortress Europe.
[All the exiled people – where do they all belong?]
Saviours and smugglers
This distinction is rarely clearer than in the new book Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour, which delves deep into this latter world and brings alive the complex reality of human smuggling and the many individuals involved in it.
Born of extensive on-the-ground research − spanning from West Africa across to North Africa, Turkey and Eastern Europe − this eminently readable and fascinating work by Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano explores how the multi-billion-dollar migrant smuggling industry operates and how it has shifted over the past few years.
Usually when the refugee and migrant crisis has been covered in the media, it is portrayed in what feels like a couple of discreet snapshots. In the first of these, bombs in Syria, repression in Eritrea or poverty in West Africa drive people from their homes. And in the second, these same individuals are now in a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean or stuck at newly-constructed borders in Eastern Europe.
How they got from one to the other has remained much more mysterious or largely been told through the perspective of individual stories. These stories are all unique and worth telling in of themselves − and the book draws heavily on individual accounts − but what has been less well examined is the way in which millions of similar journeys actively transform the political, economic and social landscape across which these voyages are made.
As the authors put it in relation to the migration flows across the Sahara, “a single convoy in the desert creates an ephemeral path that enriches a few. Repeated a few thousand times, it creates a new order of things.”
“A new order” is not an exaggeration. As Tinti and Reitano’s first-hand accounts and analysis show, various towns and regions that have become central hubs in the movement of people have been completely transformed.
In Libya, for example, the proximity of Zuwarah to the island of Lampedusa established it as a major launching point for boats after the disintegration of the state. The economy recalibrated itself around the illicit transportation of people across the Mediterranean, and this in turn has radically shifted the balance of resources and power in Libya’s fractured militia-driven polity.
In Egypt meanwhile, skyrocketing demand − particularly from Syria − pushed the smuggling industry to ramp up and professionalise. This sucked in complicit local security authorities and paved the way for kingpins such as The Doctor, The General and The Captain – all rumoured to be well-connected individuals around whom various myths swirl – to entrench their power and dominate.
And in the arid deserts of Niger, the growing industry generated unrivalled opportunities for job creation and wealth, attracting hosts of young restless men in search of adventure. As the authors write of one interviewee who loves nothing more than posting Facebook pictures of himself posing in the desert with his favourite gun: “If you ask Barka, he will tell you that his current lifestyle is the best he has ever lived. It is dangerous and fun. And most of all, it is lucrative. The alternatives, to the extent that there are any, are boring and unrewarding.”
Barka’s story writ large across the region has remoulded the relationship between smugglers and the state and created a multi-million-dollar economic buffer against instability, Islamist militancy and poverty. “Even if the Nigerien government could crack down on migrant smuggling, they have little incentive to do so,” say the authors.
Through observation, interviews with both migrants and smugglers, and occasionally by treading migratory paths themselves, Tinti and Reitano paint a rich picture of human smuggling and its protagonists across Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
But Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour does much more than just leave the reader with a colourful impression. It also unpacks close details of how the industry actually operates, how sophisticated networks have emerged to meet rising demand, and how certain rules and practices govern the business.
We learn how there is a wide array of options for would-be migrants in terms of routes, price scales and quality of service, with those at the highest end able to expect a full package − including all the necessary documents, pickups and even reviews from previous clients − tinkered and tailored to their needs.
We learn how third-party insurers hold migrants’ payments for smuggling services in escrow, only to be passed on once the client reaches their destination. We learn how money can be transferred across huge distances in a matter of minutes via informal but highly sophisticated hawala systems based on networks of ethnicity and trust, and how smugglers get around the practical difficulties of coordinating the transportation of large numbers of people under the radar.
And, amongst much more, we learn how the criminal business has come to permeate the political and security apparatuses of many countries, in terms of profits, personnel and mutually-beneficial partnerships.
Short-sighted
Tinti and Reitano approach the subject matter with the sensitivity of a confidant, the eye of a storyteller, and the analytical understanding of a researcher. However, by the end, they also convey the frustrations of an activist.
The book is certainly not a polemic, but one theme that runs through it is of how successive European responses have been ineffective at best and deeply destructive at worst. And in the concluding chapter, the authors cannot help but take aim at these ill-conceived policies, writing of how “Europe and its allies have doubled-down on short-sighted policies that are more costly and less effective in the long term”.
The highly militarised approach of deploying warships in the Mediterranean, for instance, was found to not “in any meaningful way deter the flow of migrants” by a 2016 British Parliamentary report. Meanwhile, the striking of multi-billion-dollar deals with the likes of Turkey, Sudan and Eritrea to contain migration is not just ethically dubious, but arguably strengthens authoritarian regimes and allows them to hold Europe to ransom.
[Dear Europe, if you really must re-engage with Eritrea, here’s how you should do it]
There are several reasons why Europe has such a poor record of doomed policies, but many can be seen in the simple and seemingly inconsequential way in which leaders carelessly (or perhaps carefully) conflate human traffickers with human smugglers.
Rhetorically and politically, this sleight of hand is savvy. It allows officials to paint a complex problem as one of simple criminality and security, and of good versus evil, but without overly criminalising migrants themselves with whom there may be some sympathy.
But it is a plan based on ignorance if not a deliberate and cynical manipulation of the facts. And as such, policies that derive from this fallacy of equating traffickers and smugglers are more likely to drive smuggling deeper into the criminal underground, further endangering migrants and pushing them towards the very exploitative networks that European politicians purport to be tackling. And all without addressing any of the root causes of the problem or of the need for smugglers in the first place.
All this is not to suggest human smugglers are altruistic heroes − they mostly seem to fall on the spectrum between well-meaning entrepreneurs and professional criminals − but they are, by definition, not traffickers. As the international system has turned its back on some of the world’s most vulnerable people, migrants and refugees have had to turn to illegal alternatives and, as the authors found repeatedly, “smugglers are revered as saviours by many of those they move”.
James Wan is the editor of African Arguments. Follow him on twitter at @jamesjwan.
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‘Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour’ by Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano
A journalist and an academic examine the shadowy economics of people smuggling
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November 14, 2016
by Review by Siona Jenkins
When the small body of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi was pictured lying face down on a Greek beach in 2015, the world was shocked. Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, shoes still on his feet, he was the heart-rending portrait of a migration crisis that Europe had chosen to ignore. The UK’s Daily Mail proclaimed that his photo would change history. But it did not. Millions of refugees and migrants like Alan and his family continue to flee their countries by whatever means they can. The scale of this movement of people has overwhelmed international agencies — yet instead of designing measures to better protect those fleeing war or persecution, governments have responded with strengthened barriers and harsh rhetoric.As an attempt at deterrence, this has failed spectacularly. According to the UN, although fewer people reached Europe by crossing the Mediterranean this year, the number who died trying has actually gone up.Refugees and migrants are all too aware of the hazards of their journeys but the risks are far outweighed by the dangers of staying at home. And with no legal channels of escape available to them, they are forced to rely on the services of people smugglers.A new book, Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour, argues that the world needs to understand how networks of traffickers function if it is to get to grips with this migration crisis. Co-authors Peter Tinti, a journalist, and Tuesday Reitano, an academic who specialises in the study of organised crime networks, use a mixture of reportage, first-hand accounts from migrants and extensive research to uncover a series of complex transnational industries that exist to help migrants bypass barriers — whether geographic, man-made or political — for a profit.The way businesses operate within this structure varies according to local conditions. Some are loose, informal groupings; others are highly organised criminal networks. They are linked by “hubs” along migration routes, some of which overlay ancient trade routes.As in any market, smuggling operations range from small-scale family shops to sophisticated firms. They all share, however, a flexible business model that is sensitive to sudden shifts in demand. And, thanks to a spike in armed conflict in Africa and the Middle East in the past five years, that demand has been growing exponentially. According to Tinto and Reitano, between 2013 and 2016 the number of migrants and asylum seekers trying to enter Europe increased by 1,500 per cent. Using first-hand accounts, they estimate that during a peak period in summer 2015 smugglers plying the waters between Turkey and Greece generated $5m in revenue each day. Multiply that by the many other networks around the world and it is easy to see how people smuggling has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry.Because they operate in the shadows, it is easy to see people smugglers as criminals preying on the world’s most vulnerable for money. But the reality, like the wider industry, is more complex. Smugglers range from people who genuinely want to help those in need, including themselves, refugees or migrants — to hardened transnational criminals, violent people traffickers who trap the poorest in slave labour or prostitution. Ironically, the bigger the obstacles that are designed to deter migrants, the more likely criminals are to spot an opportunity. The writers note that European policies have in effect “criminalised” migration. “With its reinforced borders and ever-shifting policies that no migrant can hope to navigate alone, European policy has provided the perfect environment for these types of networks to flourish.” The only way to completely stop smuggling is to remove demand for its services. But Tinti and Reitano argue persuasively that, to mitigate its worst effects, the industry must be treated as more than a criminal network. This calls for multi-faceted policies that acknowledge its complexity. In an era of growing populism and nationalists calling for curbs even on legal migration, such a shift seems further away than ever.The writer is an editor at FT curation and a former Middle East and Africa news editor