Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling in Central and South Asia – Experience of Local Civil Society Actors

According to the Global Organized Crime Index, human trafficking and migrant smuggling are the two largest criminal markets in Central Asia and South Asia. Despite institutional, linguistic and cultural differences between post-Soviet states and post-colonial states, reports point to shared trafficking/smuggling routes. People from both regions are transported to destinations in North America and Europe. South Asian migrants, especially from Afghanistan and Pakistan, are smuggled to Central Asia and sometimes exploited as cheap labour in the narcotics industry, while Central Asian women are often trafficked to South Asia for sexual exploitation. Providing support to victims of trafficking and smuggling falls upon local civil society, in the absence of governmental willingness to recognize that the transnational dimensions of these crimes impose a grave need for prioritizing counter-action and victim and witness support. The proposed panel seeks to examine the challenges encountered by civil society actors, as well as the methods by which these challenges have been successfully overcome. By examining the dimensions of the inter-regional trade in human beings, and the efforts that have been made to mitigate the societal damage caused, this panel offers valuable insights which might also be applicable to other regions where human trafficking is rife.