Country: Republic of Iraq

Topic: Combating the Global Network of Migrant Smuggler

Committee: The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

A. Background
Global migrant-smuggling is one of the main, scrutinizing transnational issues
the international community has always been struggling to tackle. Migrant
smuggling, according to article 3 of the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants
by Land, Sea and Air, is defined as “the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or
indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a
State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident.”1 Not to
confuse this with human trafficking, migrant smuggling is usually done within the
migrant’s consent, with the activity itself done to the migrant’s favour, benefitting
them. The reason behind their migration is poverty, war, or other instabilities that
cause it to have to be done in a hasty manner, and so to accomodate this, they need a
more cursory bureaucracy. Smugglers are then the ones providing the service to
migrants, who will pay them for said services.
Even though there’s consensus between the two parties, these smuggling
contracts often lead things to go wrong, especially for the migrants. Human rights
abuses of sorts are always bound to happen, and can even lead to things as worse as
death. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
there can be up to more than 3.000 recorded deaths per year in people smuggling
activity. To world countries, they have been generally affected by international
migrant smuggling in the way that often times the illegally smuggled migrants bring
with them a hike of crime and vagrancy problems to an extent, with one of the most
prevalent problems being drug trafficking.2 The magnitude of this migrant smuggling
activity, with up to more than 1 million individuals being smuggled each year, of
course aggravates the issue.3
To Iraq itself, the country is affected by people smuggling both in and out of
the area, as the migrant and the smuggler. In all actuality, Iraq is affected liminally
by people smuggling into and out of the country, because, generally observing,
smuggling activity into Iraq mostly consists of goods smuggling. But so, motivated by
this, smugglers often strap migrants smuggled into the country with illegal goods.
Smuggling out of the country occurs almost entirely when there’s a political or
security instability in the region. The current situation in Iraq is relatively stable,
compared to previous disruptives. From another smuggler perspective, a significant
number of Iraqi nationalities are exemplified as the perpetrators in Middle Eastern
smuggling activities.
B. Past Actions
Iraq, as a member country of the United Nations (UN), who also signed and
ratified the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
(UNTOC), of course complies to the points mentioned in the convention. This
adherence shows Iraq’s concern towards the issue. Iraq enacts the policies and its law
accordingly and objectively as measures.
C. Possible Solutions
1. Enactment of the points in UNTOC have to be done in a more united and
assertive way; both by UN (especially the latter suggested mechanism) and
UNTOC-ratifying member countries, as migrant smuggling is a global matter.
2. The concern towards migrant smuggling must be approached in the manner
that we put more efforts in minimizing the effects of it first, especially human
rights abuses towards the migrants. By this way, efforts to eliminate the main
problem itself can be found by a more thorough research.
3. World governments can educate their people more about the issue, mainly the
consequences directed towards them. By this mean, the illegal smuggling
industry can be crippled by itself.
D. References
1. Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air,
supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime.
2. Francis, David. 2001. Chronicle Foreign Service.
3. "Decapitating the snakeheads". The Economist. August 6, 2005.