Lecture
Young people and children and the counter-smuggling project
- Speaker: Gabriella Sanchez, PhD; Chair: Professor Maartje van der Woude
- Date
- Wednesday 22 January 2025
- Time
- Address
-
Wijnhaven
Turfmarkt 99
2511 DP The Hague - Room
- 2.59
Hosted by The Van Vollenhoven Institute, co-sponsored by the Dutch Migration Council, Leiden University’s Social Citizenship and Migration interdisciplinary programme, and Border Criminologies
Around the world, governments have launched aggressive initiatives to counter migrant smuggling as critical components of their efforts to control irregular migration. Said initiatives have been carried out despite a generalized lack of legislation defining migrant smuggling, a widespread misunderstanding of what the crime entails, and a problematic absence of data concerning its enforcement.
Analyses from some of the most visible migration corridors – primarily conducted by civil society and academia – have raised concerns over the growing presence of young people and children among those charged with smuggling and smuggling-related offenses. As part of prosecutorial efforts, states have increasingly relied on the widely-circulated claim that the facilitation of irregular migration for profit is controlled by transnational criminal organizations, to which young people allegedly belong.
This presentation will examine some of the current dynamics connected to the participation of young people and children in the facilitation of cross-border and high-risk migration. Drawing from empirical work in the Americas and the Mediterranean, it will examine how efforts to counter irregular migration are increasingly targeting young people, putting them at risk not only in the context of their journeys, but in their encounters with the judicial system.
About Gabriella Sanchez
A socio-cultural anthropologist with a background in law enforcement, Gabriella Sanchez's work has focused on the study of migrant smuggling and crimes committed along the migration pathway. She has a special interest in the experiences of men, women and children as facilitators of border crossing and high-risk migration. Her research (carried out in the Americas, North Africa and Europe) relies on a community-centered, participatory, human rights approach. Its goal is to reduce gaps between the experiences of people on the migration pathway and policy responses that target them.