Migrant Smuggling Data and Research

While the roles performed in smuggling are highly gendered – the activities most commonly
identified in smuggling like guiding desert treks, driving or providing security or protection being
most often performed by men – women’s roles in smuggling are also central to the success of
border crossings. Women in smuggling recruit customers, coordinate logistics, provide room and
board for those in transit, fix meals for smuggling teams, and are often in charge of negotiating
and collecting fees. Their compensation is also highly feminized, for roles typically performed
by men are paid at a higher rate than those performed by women; oftentimes, women working
alongside their spouses or romantic partners are even less likely than women working on their
own to receive any kind of financial compensation.
Participation in human smuggling by women constitutes an activity often devoid of the social
stigma attached to other markets, such as sex work or drug trafficking. Perceived among those
who rely on it as a mechanism for mobility – if not entirely as a benevolent action carried out
on behalf of the larger community (Spener, 2014) – participation in smuggling constitutes from
the perspective of its actors a legitimate employment alternative amid the precarity of life along
the migrant trail.
Review of migrant smuggling research
Research on the dynamics specific to human smuggling facilitation from
Latin America is scant. The majority of the work on irregular migration carried
out across the region has identified migration facilitation primarily from a
criminological perspective, leading in turn to the focus on specific practices,
routes or populations that become constructed as more relevant than others.
Therefore, most work involving irregular migration in the Americas has been
primarily focused on documenting the transits of Central American migrants
travelling through Mexico and the details pertaining to their journeys, but not
to smuggling itself. References to smuggling practices appear embedded in
narratives or data on irregular migration processes, and are most often reported
in the context of violent transits.
This section divides the research on migrant smuggling in the Americas
in three kinds: (a) investigative journalism; (b) grey literature; and (c) academic
research. Engagement with the topics of migrant smuggling and smugglers
varies across publications. Only a few directly address migrant smuggling, as
most of the literature has focused on the study of transit and irregular migration
across the continent, and refers to smuggling facilitation only in passing, or
in the context of inquests into criminal activity or migrant victimization (in
other words, migrant smuggling is most often described as a deviant, violent
practice). Research on irregular migration in Latin America falls primarily into
three categories: (a) identifies the experiences of migrants in transit; (b) seeks
to document the security conditions along migrant routes; and (c) focused on
describing the migration experience as present in specific cities or regions,
primarily those identified as critical on the migration trail. A significant body of
Migrant Smuggling Data and Research:
A global review of the emerging evidence base
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