Organized crime: Human trafficking, contraband and repression

In this session, Mathew Charles will present the findings of a study that explores organized crime and youth involvement in Colombia’s northern Cauca region—identifying criminal recruitment strategies and three major levels of trafficking routes along community, city, and country lines in Colombia. Leo Lin will then discuss the findings of a comparative case study that examines the trafficking of women and girls in Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Laos) through a feminist human security perspective. After this intervention, Maria Zuppello will discuss a recent study that sheds light on Latin America's underrecognized crime-terror nexus by explaining how criminal and terrorist actors are using innovative methods to evade detection, smuggle drugs, and use the proceeds to fund Islamic extremism through halal meat certification in Brazil. The session will conclude with a presentation by Taciana Santos de Souza, who will discuss the outcomes of a study which analyzed 170 cases of drug trafficking in São Paulo, Brazil and found that drug repression policies—as well as increased numbers of arrests for drug trafficking—actually favored organized crime.