Migrant Smuggling Data and Research

Map 7.1: Afghan migration flows to Europe
Source: IOM.
Categories of smugglers and smuggled migrants
For Afghan migrants, social networks, local connections and personal
relations combine to select one’s smuggler and create a bond of trust. Afghans
will pay high prices to those smugglers who have a proven reputation for having
been successful in ensuring their clients arrive safely to their destination. Afghans
rely first on a local smuggler – someone from their village, neighbourhood or
district who have been referred to them through a friend or a relative. The local
smuggler, or facilitator, will take care of the first leg of the journey to the Iranian
border. There, migrants will stay in one of a network of hotels that facilitates
the work of the smugglers, provides a boost to the local economy, and allows
migrants to prepare for the most difficult legs of their journey. 60 From there, and
by phone, the next stage is organized. A local smuggler from any given province
of Afghanistan will create a link with another smuggler on the other side of the
border. A multistaged smuggling process spans borders. Many of the smugglers
are prior migrants themselves. In focus groups led in Kabul in 2012 with taxi
drivers calling themselves “travel agents”, 61 over half of them had migrated to
60
Majidi 2008 research at the Afghanistan–Iranian border documenting the facilitators of irregular migration
of migrant workers to Iran.
61
Majidi 2012 interviews with Afghan migrants in France and returnees in Afghanistan.
166
7. Afghanistan