Migrant Smuggling Data and Research

“smuggled refugees” in China and South-East Asia (Han, 2013; Song, 2013) and
unaccompanied North Korean minors in China (McPhee, 2014).
While the studies on the Chinese snakeheads have many implications for
North Korean migrant smuggling that present much resemblance in smuggling
operations by Christian missionaries, scholars working on Japan still focus on the
traditional roles of yakuza (Friman, 2013; Jones et al., 2011) in the smuggling
and trafficking of women from Thailand to Japan in Japan’s sex industry.
Research on migrant smuggling in Japan has evolved over the past decade. Early
research dealt with ethnic Koreans illegally entering post-war Japan from 1946
until the 1970s (Morris-Suzuki, 2006). In recent years, studies focus on Chinese
and Vietnamese migrants. Many claim that migrants were smuggled into Japan
under the guise of education or training, or what was considered as “back door”
or “side door” immigration (Bélanger et al., 2011; Friman, 2013; Liu-Farrer, 2011;
Peck, 1998; Sheng and Bax, 2012; Yamamoto, 2010). This was an unintended
consequence of the Government of Japan’s decision to expand visa categories to
include student visas, among others, in a bid to address labour shortages in the
late 1980s (Yamamoto, 2010). As the student visa application process became
more stringent, Sheng and Bax (2012) found that smuggling fees associated with
self-financed study in Japan have decreased.
New topics for research on migrant smuggling continuously emerge.
Secondary migration of North Koreans to North America or Western Europe
involves the dual nationality of North Koreans (Song, 2015a; Wolman, 2012).
North Koreans exploit their dual nationality to acquire South Korean citizenship
and passport and travel to the United Kingdom, for example, to apply refugee
status. Some of the asylum applicants are not even North Koreans, but ethnically
Korean Chinese citizens. Studies on interregional brokered marriage migration
between South-East and North-East Asia present different stages of brokered
marriages from elements of human trafficking to “sham marriages” to obtain
citizenships (Cheng and Choo, 2015; Davin, 2007; Jones, 2012; Nathan, 2013;
Song, 2015b; van Liempt, 2014). Internal marriage migration in China also shows
similar trends in marriage fraud (Liu et al., 2014).
Conclusion and ways forward
Research reviewed in this chapter does not represent the reality of
migrant smuggling in and out of the region. It is only a fraction of what is actually
happening on the ground. There are significant limitations on data collection
and regional cooperation against people smuggling in the region due to the
geopolitical power imbalance and ongoing security concerns. China is too big
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10. North-East Asia