National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

2.7 Illegal immigrant smuggling 30
2.7.1 Introduction and scope
Since the amendment of Section 197a of the Penal Code on 1 January 2005,
smuggling of illegal immigrants has been defined as the provision of assistance
in gaining illegal access to the Netherlands, the provision of assistance in illegal
travel through the Netherlands and the profit‐motivated provision of assistance
in illegal residence in the Netherlands. People can decide to move to a different
country for various reasons. If the journey to the destination country cannot be
undertaken in a legal manner, for example, due to a ban on leaving the person’s
home country or a restrictive admission policy in the destination country, the
migrant may contact smugglers for help. Smuggling of illegal immigrants can
therefore be described as an illegal services market. The smugglers have the
knowledge and means required to organise the journey at a price. People who
use these services may attempt to obtain legal status in the destination country
after their arrival, or they will have to accept life as an illegal alien.
The law makes a distinction between smuggling of illegal immigrants and human
trafficking. The former involves illegal migration on a voluntary basis, whilst
human trafficking involves a violation of personal freedom. In practice it is not
always easy to distinguish between these two offences. Especially problematic are
situations where smuggled people start working at their destination after they
arrive and are exploited in relation to their work. If the smuggler had intended
from the start to exploit the smuggled person, then the entire process – including
everything about the person’s actual migration – will probably be considered to
constitute human trafficking. If the smuggler was not involved with whatever
happened to the smuggled person after the person arrived in the destination
country, the illegal migration will usually be considered to constitute smuggling of
illegal immigrants . In this example we simply stated that the smuggled persons
were victims of exploitation; real life, however, is not as clear-cut. It is often
difficult to establish whether illegal migrants who work in bad circumstances in
the catering sector are victims of socio-economic exploitation or whether they are
performing illegal work that is badly paid. Nevertheless, this distinction determines
whether this is a case of human trafficking or smuggling of illegal immigrants.
30
This section is based on a report prepared in part for NTA 2008: Dienst Nationale Recherche
(DNR), 2008. Mensensmokkel. Deelrapport Criminaliteitsbeeldanalyse 2007. Korps landelijke
politiediensten (Netherlands Police Agency), DNR (National Crime Squad), Driebergen
(confidential). The author of this report is M. Soudijn. The information from this report was
included with a view to qualifying the threat level of the criminal phenomenon. This qualification
and a summary of the arguments can be found in the final section.
74 National Threat Assessment 2008 – Organised crime