Not to mention, migrant smuggling is understood as consensual, giving people the impression that these migrants cannot be victims. It is important to make this distinction because promoting the idea that migrants only participate in voluntary smuggling erases the plight of migrants that are indeed trapped in the system of human trafficking. As the UNODC explains, migrant smuggling “consists of assisting migrants to enter or stay in a country illegally, for a financial or material gain”, which stands in contrast to the forceful nature of human trafficking defined earlier. Many people mistake the human trafficking of migrants for migrant smuggling. Understanding Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling These may be people brought to Morocco involuntarily, but they are often also migrants, who are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. In Morocco, human trafficking seems to be on the rise, with an increase from 131 identified survivors in 2018 to 423 in 2019 146 of the latter were foreigners.
As of 2016, 40.3 million people were victims of human trafficking worldwide. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime defines human trafficking, also known as trafficking in persons (TIP), as “the recruitment, movement or harboring of people for the purpose of exploitation – such as sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery or organ removal…by the use of improper means such as the threat or use of force, fraudulent schemes, deception, or abuse of power”. An increased level of global awareness about the issue of human trafficking has shown many that slavery is not a thing of the past, but that it has rather just taken new forms.
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