How have social changes within migration-generating societies converged with an enlargement of the underground economy worldwide? How has this convergence created new conditions under which migrants (trafficked or smuggled) become incorporated into the worlds of production and consumption? This study, from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, argues that there is, currently, too great an emphasis on control without sufficient knowledge of the rapidly changing realities. Approaching human trafficking and migration as sequences in a continuum of mobility might bring new insights into the dynamics that exist at a deeper level of structural transformation.
Policymakers in administering migration policy make a distinction between legal and illegal migration. Academics in the course of their research divide the processes of migration into internal, regional and transnational domains. This fragmentation often obliterates dynamics of migration that lie at the interface of the local, regional and global spheres and the practices of control that are embodied in arrangements of labor mobility.
Made up of a vast network of formal and informal institutions channeling multidirectional flows of people, this industry is yet to be subject to analytical scrutiny. The existing body of knowledge suggests that power relations form and shape the migration process.
- These can include contract-based commercial relationships involving service providers and consumers with carefully planned migration packages in line with legal requirements at varying degrees of accuracy.
- These can also involve more nebulous agreements based on informal ties premised on mutuality and reciprocity as core values, which can become unsustainable in the context of translocality.
- These networks react to changing state policies and practices of border control, creating new channels and new sites of transfer, some of which imply an increased level of dependency on third parties, arbitrary treatment and extreme hazards.
- Migration in trans-Sahara, trans-Alpine movements to Western Europe and flows of people across the US-Mexican border show how the implementation of the concept of a ‘gated community’ can lead to tragedies that are unacceptable from the human rights perspective.
- Under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, trade-connected mobility is well protected by governments. A similar mode for semi-skilled and low skilled labour does not exist, leaving them with limited choices beyond the paths that subject them to a punitive regime of crime control.
A vision of social justice cannot maintain a distinction between ‘knowledge migrants’ and ‘unskilled migrants’ and must alter the reasoning in ways that promote more harmony in the management of migration as one of the most crucial issues in world affairs today.
- Analysing the transformation of migration practices as they are related to changing regulations at the global and regional levels may provide a deeper understanding of the interplay between economy and culture, and the role of the migration industry.
- Exposing the relationship between dominant forms of social knowledge and the policy field – in order to situate and tackle issues of rights violations on different scales of governance – might be helpful in generating new directions for change that are more embedded in social realities.
- A feminist perspective might help explain the interaction between different forms of institutional discrimination and how these interactions affect the lived experiences of work and livelihood and exploitation.
