Trails of Insecurity: Conference on illicit migration

A one-day conference hosted by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime and the HSF, entitled “Trails of Insecurity: Illicit Migration as a source of Threat Financing and Criminal Resourcing in Africa” and held in Addis Ababa on 19 January 2016, brought together policy makers, researchers and migration experts in a timely attempt to explore the extent to which migration is the source of threat financing and terrorism. 

The conference was convened as a result of a recent study by the ISS and The Global Initiative (funded by the HSF): “Survive and advance: The economics of smuggling refugees and migrants into Europe”.

The push factors driving an unprecedented number of refugees and migrants to Europe are numerous: wars and conflicts, terrorism, long-standing repressive regimes, chronic poverty and inequality. An increasingly violent and opportunistic smuggling industry is assisting and facilitating these journeys. Migration has become an industry and the networks involved are increasingly well organised and transnational; they have developed where they previously did not exist. Illicit migrant smuggling networks now spread from a migrant’s country of origin all the way into Europe. At the same time these networks and actors have become more and more responsive to migration trends as well as policy attempts to curb the phenomenon.