Trafficking in human beings: human rights and ... - unesdoc - Unesco

ut nonetheless refl ects the kind of negative climate in which such texts are frequently
discussed. Moreover, illegal immigration is to be ‘fought’ and ‘combated’. 368 States are at
war with irregular migrants and must gather all their forces to repel the attack. However,
this is not merely negative language and the war on irregular migration has indeed
resulted in military-type operations on the external borders of the EU, particularly in
the Mediterranean and the Eastern Atlantic, with tragic consequences. 369 The use of this
military and negative terminology immediately raises imagery of an enemy, of repeat
criminal offenders who habitually violate the law, of ‘non-persons’ with few, lesser or
even no rights. Consequently, the association of migrants with criminality, in the case
of irregular migrants in particular, is immediate and unrelenting. Such values transcend
borders and the categorisation of persons into nationals and non-nationals or lawfully
resident and irregular migrants. 370
The distinction – or rather perhaps the lack of distinction – between traffi cking and
smuggling also extends to the state’s distinction between “deserving” and “undeserving”
victims of human trade, with varying degrees of blame being attributed to various categories
of irregular migrants. The current dominance of discourses that identify unauthorised,
unwanted and forced migrants as lawbreakers, a public order risk, a menace to national
sovereignty, an existential threat to our way of life, or a combination of all is by now well
documented. 371
Recently intergovernmental cooperation in the fi eld of migration management has focused
primarily on concluding readmission agreements. Furthermore many destination regions
have created zones of exclusion – the EU, North America and Australia. Each zone has its
own local characteristics, but they refl ect that controlling the physical and legal routes to
which forced or unauthorized migrants can acquire some form of legitimacy is a dominant
imperative of border policies. The most fundamental feature of the exclusion zone is the
externalisation of border controls through three levels of enforcement. Internally it rests
on measures such as detention: at the border, exclusion measures range from restrictive
visas through to full-scale military mobilisation. Externally it provides a virtual border
– outposts of asylum and immigration services processing visa applications in countries
of transit and departure, carrier liability measures and the maintenance of camps and
citizens of third countries’: Annex to the Annex, point 1(f), emphasis added. For more on the VIS
see below.
368 See e.g. Proposal for a Comprehensive Plan to Combat Illegal Immigration and Traffi cking of
Human Beings in the European Union [2002] OJ C 142/23 and Draft Council Conclusions on the
establishment of a monitoring and evaluation mechanism of the third countries in the fi eld of the fi ght
against illegal immigration, Council doc 15292/03, 25 Nov 2003.
369 See Fekete, L.: “Canary Island Tragedy: Did the RAF Put Border Security before Human Safety?”,
Institute of Race Relations (IRR) News, Oct 2003, Available at http://www.irr.org.uk/index.html.
370 Cholewinski, R.: “The Criminalisation of Migration in EU Law and Policy” in A. Baldaccini, E. Guild
and H. Toner (eds), Whose Freedom, Security and Justice? EU Immigration and Asylum Law and
Policy (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2007) 301-336.
371 Lee, M. (ed).: Human Traffi cking, p. 12.
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