Smuggler or Saviour? The role of human smugglers in contemporary mixed migration
A Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa and Institute of Global Affairs event
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Wednesday 26 October
19.30-21:00
CLM 6.02, Clement House, LSE, Aldwych
Speakers: Tuesday Reitano, Peter Tinti, Dr Mollie Gerver
Chair: Professor Chandran Kukathas
As millions of people seek passage to Europe in order to escape conflict, repression, poverty and natural catastrophe, their movements are enabled and encouraged by ruthless professional criminal networks that earn billions of pounds from this insidious new trade. But smugglers are also revered as saviours by many of those they move, delivering them to a safer place and a better life.
Disconcertingly, in the contemporary migration context, it has often been those labelled as criminals who help the most desperate when the international system turns them away.
This discussion endeavours to help analysts better understand how people-smuggling networks function, the ways in which they have evolved, and their long term impact on both migration, global security and organised crime.
Tuesday Reitano (@tuesdayjaded) is Deputy Director at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (@GI_TOC).
Peter Tinti (@petertinti) is a Research Fellow at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime.
Dr Mollie Gerver (@MollieGerver) is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds.
Professor Chandran Kukathas is Chair in Political Theory and Head of the Department of Government at LSE.
Tinti and Reitano have recently co-authored a book: Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour that thoroughly examines the role of smugglers in Europe's migration crisis. Copies of the book will be on sale at the event.