RCMP Gazette Human Rights and Policing - Alberta Hate Crimes ...

huMAN RiGhTShuMANAND POliCiNGRiGhTS AND POliCiNGMigrant smuggling and human rights:notes from the fieldEastern Africa is one of the poorest, mostconflict-riddled regions in the world and,within this region, migrant smugglingbetween countries is commonplace.The following article by Fiona David, alawyer and researcher in smuggling andtrafficking issues, seeks to provide someinsights into the drivers and realities ofmigrant smuggling, and the human rightsimplications of this trade in human misery.by Fiona DavidIn Canada, as in my own country Australia,law enforcement is tasked with respondingto the tail end of the migrant smugglingprocess, the most visible aspect of which isthe unlawful boat arrivals. While politiciansresort to simplistic calls to “stop the boats”or “strengthen border protection,” thereality is that migrant smuggling raises ahost of complex criminal justice and humanrights considerations.indeed that the Government of Djibouti hasa refugee program. The government hostsapproximately 12,000 people in its onerefugee camp.Yet despite Djibouti’s apparentgenerosity, the refugee system is failing.Several of the young men told me thatthey literally could not get the necessaryappointment with the Djiboutian refugeeagency to register as refugees.The government has made an unwrittendecision that young men from Somalia are asecurity risk.It is the failure of this refugee systemthat drives many of these young men —with no home and no other hope — to getonto overcrowded boats and to try to build anew life elsewhere.Until fairly recently, Ethiopians andSomalis most commonly sought the servicesof people smugglers in the port town ofBossaso in northern Somalia.However, in 2008, grenades were letoff in an area that was heavily inhabited bymigrants.Reports vary as to why the bombingsoccurred, but 25 Ethiopian migrants werekilled. Increasingly, migrants are choosingto use the relative safety of the Djibouti–Yemen route.Meet the smugglersWhile in some senses people smugglersprovide a necessary safety valve for peoplewho need to escape civil persecution, thereality is that people smugglers are not allOskar Schindlers.In Eastern Africa, recent researchconfirms that migrant smugglers aredeeply implicated in perpetrating violence,including sexual assault of migrants,extortion, theft and racketeering against themigrants themselves.For example, smugglers on the boatsoperating between Somalia and Yemenare known for their violent and abusiveMeet the migrantsI was recently in Djibouti, one of the poorestcountries in the world, with a landscape thatis described by the CIA World Factbook as“largely wasteland.” Djibouti has a longcoastline in the Gulf of Aden. From someof the coastline, Yemen can be reached bysmall boat in less than two hours.While in Djibouti, I met with a group ofyoung people from neighbouring countrieswho had sought shelter there.They included men who had escapedfrom the army in Eritrea, women who hadsought shelter from Ethiopian conflict andmen fleeing from Mogadishu in Somalia.All lived on the margins of society inDjibouti.Each of them clutched a small folder withtheir most precious possessions: documents,sometimes dating back to the 1980s, fromthe United Nations High Commissioner forRefugees or the Red Cross.Djibouti (pop. 700,000) is wedgedbetween Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.With neighbours like these, it is fortunateThis abandoned vehicle was used to transport migrants through the desert to the beaches of Djibouti where smugglers meettheir passengers.Courtesy Fiona David16Gazette Vol. 72, No. 3, 2010