issue

human trafficking and security

Human trafficking is a serious issue. But is it a security issue? 

individual level: Trafficking in persons is perhaps most clearly seen as a security issue through the lens of human security.  The feminist approach to international security seems most willing to embrace this expanded view of human trafficking.  Feminist scholars such as Jennifer Lobasz outline the human rights-level issues that feminism takes with human trafficking.  Lobasz argues in her article “Beyond Border Security: Feminist Approaches to Human Trafficking” that the discourse on the security implications of trafficking in persons must go beyond a traditional focus on state-level threats to center around a more individual-level approach.

state level: It can be difficult to consider how the realist paradigm might categorize human trafficking as a legitimate security issue. Trafficking in persons does not constitute the “hard” issues that realists traditionally associate with international security. Human trafficking does indeed pose a threat to the realist notion of security, primarily in terms of border security. One could argue that a threat to a state’s border security makes that state vulnerable in the international arena in terms of balance of power. This threat is particularly pertinent in a discussion of human trafficking in the European Union.  A vast number of persons trafficked into the European Union are not EU nationals, which implicates the illegal migration of trafficked persons into EU borders.  The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 2010 Annual Report of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings outlines several security issues posed by human trafficking, particularly highlighting how trafficking is linked to migration policies. However, as the migration issues that human trafficking presents deal largely with EU borders rather than individual state borders, this argument might be more in line with neorealist or structural realist theory. 

international level: Globalization can be considered a major contributing factor to human trafficking. Increased free trade and migration efforts in Europe make the European Union one of the strongest arguments for this idea. The introduction of the Schengen Agreement allows for free movement across the borders of twenty-six European states. This means that traffickers can move persons within the Schengen area largely undetected. The OSCE report mentioned above also discusses several other concerns that the liberal institutionalist paradigm would view as security issues.  The report purports that trafficking in persons is a threat to peacekeeping efforts of international institutions as well as to the rule of law of these institutions. Both of these issues are transnational ones that deal with non-state actors, which are considered according to liberal institutionalism as important players in international security.