WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.800 Good morning. Welcome to this session of the Festival of Ideas on people smuggling, 2 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:10.340 why migrant smuggling pays. I'm Peter Mayers, presenter of the National Interest on ABC Radio 3 00:00:10.340 --> 00:00:15.660 National and a member of the advisory committee of the festival and I'm glad to see we've got a 4 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:20.640 serious audience here who are more interested in the big issues of migration than in whether or 5 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:29.140 not chiropractors are quacks. In recent times we've seen a shift in political rhetoric in 6 00:00:29.140 --> 00:00:36.760 Australia away from talk about queue jumpers and such like language to the evil people smugglers. 7 00:00:37.460 --> 00:00:44.820 So a shift in where the focus of criticism goes when irregular migrants or asylum seekers come 8 00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:50.100 to our shores by boat. The target now is very much the people smugglers. So I think it's very 9 00:00:50.100 --> 00:00:58.540 appropriate that we have this topic at this festival discussing why migrant smuggling pays. 10 00:00:59.140 --> 00:01:06.460 I must say I have regular correspondence with someone, a listener and someone who's been a very 11 00:01:07.620 --> 00:01:12.440 active advocate for refugee rights in Australia who whenever I use the term people smuggling 12 00:01:12.440 --> 00:01:20.700 sends me emails of fairly ferocious nature criticising me for using this term because 13 00:01:20.700 --> 00:01:27.340 as she points out everyone has a right under international law to seek asylum. So if someone 14 00:01:29.140 --> 00:01:34.800 is a smuggler they're not a people smuggler, they're something else. It's a humanitarian act 15 00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:42.460 in a way and certainly she makes the point that the fishermen who end up in the courts being 16 00:01:42.460 --> 00:01:50.360 prosecuted in Australia for people smuggling are being incorrectly labelled. I disagree with her 17 00:01:50.360 --> 00:01:55.660 though because I think people smuggling is an industry and a very profitable industry and it 18 00:01:55.660 --> 00:01:59.120 deserves to be analysed as such. There's a difference between people smuggling and people smuggling. 19 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:06.120 There's a difference between the fact that someone has a right to cross a border to seek asylum and 20 00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:11.780 someone running a business to make a profit from facilitating that process I think. Anyway enough 21 00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:17.700 from me because we have probably the world's leading authority on these types of issues to 22 00:02:17.700 --> 00:02:23.860 talk to you. Dr Khaled Khosa is a geographer and an expert on forced migration. He's co-director 23 00:02:23.860 --> 00:02:28.600 of the new issues in security course at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and he's a 24 00:02:29.140 --> 00:02:33.640 professor of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington and he has a 25 00:02:33.640 --> 00:02:39.000 particular interest in asylum issues, forced migration as I say, international migration 26 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.940 generally. He's the author of this very good little book, International Migration, a very short 27 00:02:43.940 --> 00:02:49.400 introduction, an Oxford University Press publication. I first came across his work 28 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:58.980 several years ago when he and I were both within the same publication and what struck me 29 00:02:59.140 --> 00:03:04.380 about Khaled's work is that while many of us make assumptions about why people move and the way in 30 00:03:04.380 --> 00:03:12.880 which they move, he looked for empirical evidence, evidence-based data on why these movements happen 31 00:03:12.880 --> 00:03:22.360 and how they happen and his work is surprising and rigorous and refreshing in the debates we 32 00:03:22.360 --> 00:03:27.600 have which are often very predictable about these sorts of issues. So please welcome Dr Khaled Khosa. 33 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:58.400 Well thank you very much Peter for that incredibly kind introduction. It's a real pleasure for me to be in Adelaide despite the wind and the rain and despite the cricket. We won't talk about that much more I hope. I'm delighted and very grateful to the organisers of the Adelaide Festival of Ideas for inviting me. I've been on three panels and this is my solo session. I've enjoyed it thoroughly and found the feedback from the audience particularly rewarding. So I'm going to try to make sure that we have enough time for at least 10 or 15 minutes of discussion at the end of my presentation. 34 00:03:59.140 --> 00:04:03.460 Thanks to you also for making the effort to come on a windy Sunday morning. I'm very grateful you've made 35 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:11.020 the effort. As Peter has indicated, the topic of my talk today, migrant smuggling, is a hugely 36 00:04:11.020 --> 00:04:16.660 topical hot-button issue in Australia at the moment, especially there's a focus around so-called 37 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:23.880 boat arrivals. We know that something like 28 boats carrying something like 944 people have 38 00:04:23.880 --> 00:04:28.800 either landed in Australia or been intercepted on their way to Australia in the last year or so. 39 00:04:29.140 --> 00:04:34.020 There are rumours in the press that there are 10,000 people waiting to get to Indonesia and many 40 00:04:34.020 --> 00:04:39.480 of them planning to come on to Australia. I read yesterday that a boat carrying 74 people 41 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:43.860 apparently from Pakistan and Afghanistan has become lost somewhere in the sea between Indonesia 42 00:04:43.860 --> 00:04:49.600 and Australia and I think we can perhaps expect the worst there, which is rather sad. I know also 43 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:53.840 there's a very lively debate in this country around how to control and stop boat arrivals. 44 00:04:54.100 --> 00:04:58.880 I note that earlier this year in Bali, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said that he 45 00:04:59.140 --> 00:05:03.980 thought the global financial crisis might lead to more people fleeing places like Indonesia and 46 00:05:03.980 --> 00:05:09.440 heading for Australia. That's something we might wish to come back to discuss after my presentation. 47 00:05:09.820 --> 00:05:13.180 I know there's also been debates about the Rudd government's changes in policy, 48 00:05:13.940 --> 00:05:17.480 abandoning the so-called Pacific solution, abandoning temporary protection visas, 49 00:05:17.760 --> 00:05:22.720 and some debate about the extent to which these more lenient policies are perhaps encouraging 50 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:27.860 people to come to this country in an illegal manner. Let me just say on that, as an outsider, 51 00:05:28.080 --> 00:05:29.060 someone who doesn't live in Australia, 52 00:05:29.920 --> 00:05:35.240 make no mistake, the Pacific solution, so-called, was a scar on Australia's otherwise excellent 53 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:43.720 international reputation. And I have to say that even if the cost is, and this is by no means 54 00:05:43.720 --> 00:05:48.400 necessarily proven, but even if the cost is that a further 100 asylum seekers also arrive in this 55 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:53.020 country each year, I think it's a cost worth paying, a price worth paying, to make sure that 56 00:05:53.020 --> 00:05:58.040 Australia re-establishes its otherwise excellent international reputation. I'm perfectly happy to 57 00:06:00.940 --> 00:06:28.280 say that the Rudd government's changes in policy are not only a result of the 58 00:06:02.080 --> 00:06:03.180 ! 59 00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:59.120 I'm not going to say that the Rudd government's changes in policy are not only a result of the 60 00:06:59.120 --> 00:06:59.320 ! 61 00:07:39.840 --> 00:07:59.100 I'm going to say that the Rudd government's changes in policy are not only a result of the 62 00:07:59.120 --> 00:07:59.180 ! 63 00:08:31.140 --> 00:08:51.720 I'm going to say that the Rudd government's changes in policy are not only a result of the 64 00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:04.800 alternative approach that's normally, I think, adopted and look as Peter has indicated look 65 00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:08.660 as Peter has indicated look at smuggling as a business as an industry. And in particular 66 00:09:08.660 --> 00:09:13.920 what I'd like to do is to follow the money through this business. I want to try to answer 67 00:09:13.920 --> 00:09:18.620 the following questions. How much do smugglers charge? You're going to see that the charges 68 00:09:18.620 --> 00:09:23.800 vary according to route and destination and method. How do migrants and their families 69 00:09:23.800 --> 00:09:29.100 raise the money to pay those charges? How are smugglers paid by migrants? Why? Why? 70 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:31.960 and their families, and there's some interesting findings around that. 71 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:33.660 What do smugglers do with the money? 72 00:09:33.760 --> 00:09:36.480 How do they disperse it to make sure that smuggling actually works? 73 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:38.880 How much money do migrants send home 74 00:09:38.880 --> 00:09:41.640 once they've arrived in their destination countries? 75 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:44.340 And what happens to the money that they send home? 76 00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:46.780 And the headline here, and we'll see it at the end, 77 00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:50.120 is that basically smuggling pays for everybody involved. 78 00:09:50.500 --> 00:09:53.540 And I think if we start to understand smuggling as an economic process 79 00:09:53.540 --> 00:09:56.660 where everybody, from the migrants to the families to the smugglers, 80 00:09:56.760 --> 00:09:58.480 arguably to the destination societies, 81 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:00.200 and the origin economies too, 82 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:03.500 if you understand it as a process whereby everybody seems to profit, 83 00:10:03.700 --> 00:10:04.880 then I think we need to think about 84 00:10:04.880 --> 00:10:07.660 some quite radically different alternative policy approaches 85 00:10:07.660 --> 00:10:11.320 to making this stop, if that's what we think we should do. 86 00:10:11.620 --> 00:10:14.800 My economic approach is by no means intended 87 00:10:14.800 --> 00:10:18.100 to underestimate the human costs of migrant smuggling. 88 00:10:19.160 --> 00:10:21.620 Something like 2,000 people each year 89 00:10:21.620 --> 00:10:25.400 die trying to cross from North Africa to Southern Europe 90 00:10:25.400 --> 00:10:26.580 across the Mediterranean in boats, 91 00:10:26.640 --> 00:10:28.000 2,000 a year dying. 92 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:29.420 Making that journey. 93 00:10:29.800 --> 00:10:33.940 Something like 600 a year die trying to cross from Mexico into the USA. 94 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:37.080 So significant deaths of people trying to move around the world. 95 00:10:37.360 --> 00:10:39.900 And also I don't want to underestimate the exploitation 96 00:10:39.900 --> 00:10:42.420 that many people go through once they arrive. 97 00:10:42.660 --> 00:10:45.160 The detention facilities in which many people find themselves, 98 00:10:45.300 --> 00:10:46.500 which I think are a disgrace. 99 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:50.040 The exploitation of those people who find themselves in work and so on and so forth. 100 00:10:50.100 --> 00:10:52.220 So I'm not underestimating the human costs, 101 00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:54.380 but I think it's useful to focus on the economics of this 102 00:10:54.380 --> 00:10:57.800 to see if we can uncover some new realities and think differently. 103 00:10:58.000 --> 00:10:58.960 about policies. 104 00:10:59.940 --> 00:11:03.740 So let's try to follow the money through the smuggling industry. 105 00:11:04.040 --> 00:11:06.880 The first question to ask is how much do smugglers charge? 106 00:11:08.380 --> 00:11:11.300 Again, based on research in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 107 00:11:11.860 --> 00:11:15.460 Costs vary significantly according to the destination to which you want to go, 108 00:11:15.580 --> 00:11:17.820 assuming you're leaving Afghanistan or Pakistan. 109 00:11:18.140 --> 00:11:21.880 In general, the USA and Canada, North America, are the most expensive. 110 00:11:22.020 --> 00:11:25.320 And Western Europe and Australia are roughly the same amounts of costs, 111 00:11:25.480 --> 00:11:27.420 cheaper than going to North America. 112 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:30.740 Costs also vary by mode of transport. 113 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:34.500 Looking, for example, at Afghanistan to Australia at the moment, 114 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:39.520 to fly between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Australia illegally with a smuggler 115 00:11:39.520 --> 00:11:43.600 will cost you something between 12,000 and 15,000 US dollars. 116 00:11:43.940 --> 00:11:46.480 These are not insignificant sums of money. 117 00:11:46.640 --> 00:11:50.160 To do it by a combination of flight, then boat, perhaps a boat from Indonesia, 118 00:11:50.400 --> 00:11:53.680 will cost you somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 dollars 119 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:57.280 according to going rates at the moment amongst migrant smugglers in Pakistan. 120 00:11:58.380 --> 00:12:02.940 Let me just make two observations of those costs and that range of costs. 121 00:12:03.780 --> 00:12:05.520 Firstly, smuggling is a flexible business. 122 00:12:06.340 --> 00:12:09.320 Smugglers will deliver a service that suits the depth of your pocket. 123 00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:12.600 If you can't afford to go to the USA, I'll take you to Turkey. 124 00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:15.780 If you can't afford to get to the UK, I'll take you to Australia. 125 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:18.980 If you can't afford a flight, which is probably the safest way to go, 126 00:12:19.100 --> 00:12:21.800 then I'll make it cheaper and we'll do a combination of flight and boat. 127 00:12:21.920 --> 00:12:22.640 This is a business. 128 00:12:22.820 --> 00:12:27.020 You're a customer and I'll find a way to get your business and to get your customer to get your money. 129 00:12:27.100 --> 00:12:27.680 If you're poor, 130 00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:29.360 don't worry, we'll find a way to make it work. 131 00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:31.020 If you're richer, let's do it by flight. 132 00:12:31.060 --> 00:12:32.960 Go straight to the USA and things will be straightforward. 133 00:12:33.280 --> 00:12:36.440 It's a business and I think we need to think of it in those terms. 134 00:12:36.940 --> 00:12:38.500 And the second observation I'd make is that 135 00:12:38.940 --> 00:12:42.380 I think almost by definition, given the amounts of money we're talking about, 136 00:12:42.860 --> 00:12:45.040 smuggling does not involve the poorest of the poor. 137 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:48.300 These are people who, as we'll see in a minute, 138 00:12:48.420 --> 00:12:53.100 at least have the wherewithal to raise loans, perhaps to sell property. 139 00:12:53.340 --> 00:12:57.380 They have the wherewithal to be able to raise the money that's needed to pay these rather large and exorbitant 140 00:12:57.680 --> 00:12:58.240 fees. 141 00:12:58.560 --> 00:13:02.780 Having said that, I had a very interesting debate yesterday with Julian Garside on another panel 142 00:13:02.780 --> 00:13:06.280 and he made the point, and I think it's important to emphasise here, 143 00:13:06.420 --> 00:13:09.040 that we shouldn't underestimate, especially in the Australian context, 144 00:13:09.300 --> 00:13:13.120 that many people are still coming from very underprivileged and very poor backgrounds. 145 00:13:13.400 --> 00:13:14.600 And I take that point completely. 146 00:13:14.800 --> 00:13:19.040 My only argument is that given the costs involved, these are not the desperately poor of the world. 147 00:13:19.140 --> 00:13:20.280 These are not peasants. 148 00:13:20.660 --> 00:13:23.620 And I think when we come back to perhaps discuss the global financial crisis, 149 00:13:23.660 --> 00:13:24.440 that's an important implication. 150 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:27.600 There may be more people who are desperate to leave poor, 151 00:13:27.680 --> 00:13:31.660 whether they can afford to, paying smugglers, I think is another matter. 152 00:13:32.200 --> 00:13:34.760 So there's the first set of issues. 153 00:13:34.860 --> 00:13:37.700 How much families need to raise to pay smugglers in the first place. 154 00:13:37.900 --> 00:13:40.780 Let's look now at how migrants and families raise the money. 155 00:13:41.100 --> 00:13:44.780 The first thing to say is that in almost all the cases of people I spoke to, 156 00:13:44.800 --> 00:13:46.440 both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 157 00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:49.700 it was families, not migrants themselves, who raised the money. 158 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.880 Very few migrants have the money, either in savings or the wherewithal, 159 00:13:52.920 --> 00:13:53.800 to raise the money themselves. 160 00:13:54.040 --> 00:13:56.360 And they rely on families and family networks. 161 00:13:56.760 --> 00:13:57.660 This is an investment. 162 00:13:57.680 --> 00:13:59.200 This is an investment by families in their children. 163 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:02.820 Just as you might invest in sending your children to school or university, 164 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:05.060 these are families investing in their children, 165 00:14:05.280 --> 00:14:07.960 either to get them out of harm's way, if they're fleeing persecution, 166 00:14:08.380 --> 00:14:12.200 or to help them perhaps to achieve a better life and a better standard of living 167 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:13.840 by getting them to another part of the world. 168 00:14:13.900 --> 00:14:16.400 Again, think of it as an investment, as a business. 169 00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:21.860 How did families raise money to pay these large fees to move their children around the world? 170 00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:24.140 Some people drew on savings. 171 00:14:24.900 --> 00:14:26.200 Some people sold property. 172 00:14:26.200 --> 00:14:27.820 Some people were selling jewellery. 173 00:14:28.900 --> 00:14:30.200 Some people sold land. 174 00:14:30.560 --> 00:14:34.840 Many people took on debt and borrowed money from money lenders. 175 00:14:35.100 --> 00:14:37.200 And let me just go back especially to the jewellery point. 176 00:14:37.280 --> 00:14:40.260 Anyone who knows the Islamic culture, who knows Pakistan and Afghanistan, 177 00:14:40.540 --> 00:14:43.980 selling your jewellery is a fairly significant thing to do in these parts of the world. 178 00:14:44.120 --> 00:14:45.760 This isn't something you do lightly. 179 00:14:45.940 --> 00:14:48.800 These are wedding betrothals and so on and so forth. 180 00:14:48.920 --> 00:14:49.980 These are significant investments. 181 00:14:50.180 --> 00:14:50.680 That's the point. 182 00:14:50.740 --> 00:14:51.840 You're selling land. 183 00:14:51.940 --> 00:14:52.600 You're selling property. 184 00:14:52.680 --> 00:14:53.360 You're selling jewellery. 185 00:14:53.400 --> 00:14:56.180 You're taking on risky loans from unscrupulous families. 186 00:14:56.180 --> 00:14:56.700 You're taking on risky loans from unscrupulous money lenders. 187 00:14:56.780 --> 00:14:59.980 This is a business and you expect a return on your investment. 188 00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:03.340 This isn't something you take on lightly, I think, in any of these countries. 189 00:15:04.700 --> 00:15:08.720 On average, across my sample of over 100 people in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 190 00:15:09.480 --> 00:15:14.760 smugglers' fees came to 367% of annual household income. 191 00:15:15.420 --> 00:15:20.360 So what I'm saying is that people somehow raised more than three times their annual income 192 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:22.200 in order to pay for smuggling. 193 00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:25.280 So again, an investment and an investment upon which people expect 194 00:15:25.280 --> 00:15:26.160 some sort of return. 195 00:15:26.180 --> 00:15:29.760 You don't just take on borrowing three times your household income for the sake of it. 196 00:15:29.820 --> 00:15:33.000 You do it because you expect some form of return upon that investment. 197 00:15:34.700 --> 00:15:35.500 Next question. 198 00:15:35.640 --> 00:15:36.860 We've seen how much smuggling costs. 199 00:15:37.160 --> 00:15:41.180 We've seen how migrants and normally their families raise the money to pay those costs. 200 00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:42.660 How are smugglers paid? 201 00:15:42.800 --> 00:15:45.300 And I think this is among the most interesting of the findings. 202 00:15:46.920 --> 00:15:51.880 Anyone in this room who's used eBay will be aware of what an escrow service is. 203 00:15:52.420 --> 00:15:55.420 An escrow service is a company that holds a buyer's money 204 00:15:55.420 --> 00:15:56.160 and then sells it. 205 00:15:56.180 --> 00:15:58.580 Until the buyer is satisfied with the goods that have been delivered, 206 00:15:58.740 --> 00:16:01.380 and then the escrow service releases the money to the seller. 207 00:16:01.660 --> 00:16:05.860 So you're not risking paying all the money to the seller who's going to sell you a dodgy high-fire, 208 00:16:05.940 --> 00:16:07.420 which means you don't get the goods that you want. 209 00:16:07.700 --> 00:16:10.620 On eBay, you deposit your money with a third party in the escrow service. 210 00:16:10.780 --> 00:16:15.480 Once you're satisfied with what you've got, the money is then released to the person who's selling you the item. 211 00:16:16.140 --> 00:16:20.500 Exactly the same system exists today in smuggling in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 212 00:16:21.700 --> 00:16:24.100 Migrant families don't pay the money directly to smugglers. 213 00:16:24.100 --> 00:16:26.660 They pay their money to a third party, 214 00:16:26.800 --> 00:16:28.880 usually a money changer or a money handler, 215 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.860 normally in one of the big bazaars, either in Peshawar or Kabul. 216 00:16:33.100 --> 00:16:37.020 The money is only released by that third party to the smuggler 217 00:16:37.020 --> 00:16:40.180 once the migrant has arrived safely in his or her destination. 218 00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:42.740 Now just think about what I'm saying. 219 00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:45.940 What I'm talking about here is a money-back guarantee on smuggling. 220 00:16:46.920 --> 00:16:49.160 If you don't make it to your destination safely, 221 00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:51.120 I as a smuggler get nothing at all. 222 00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:51.920 Nothing. 223 00:16:52.020 --> 00:16:54.080 The money is taken from the third party, 224 00:16:54.080 --> 00:16:56.040 from the money changer often in the market, 225 00:16:56.160 --> 00:16:58.700 and goes back to the family and lets us call the whole deal off. 226 00:16:58.780 --> 00:17:02.280 A money-back guarantee on migrant smuggling today in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 227 00:17:02.540 --> 00:17:03.500 Now this varies around the world, 228 00:17:03.580 --> 00:17:07.420 and you'd find slightly different responses in West Africa and South America and so on and so forth. 229 00:17:07.540 --> 00:17:11.100 But I think that's quite a striking and important finding that we might wish to come back to. 230 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:15.980 It's interesting briefly to look at how payments have evolved in this setting. 231 00:17:17.460 --> 00:17:18.880 About five to ten years ago, 232 00:17:18.980 --> 00:17:21.960 the method was that all of the money was paid up front to the smuggler. 233 00:17:22.020 --> 00:17:24.060 So if you wanted to move to Afghanistan, 234 00:17:24.080 --> 00:17:24.340 you'd come to Australia, 235 00:17:24.540 --> 00:17:25.980 you would come to me, the smuggler, 236 00:17:26.060 --> 00:17:28.420 you'd give me the money up front and you'd hope that I was trustworthy. 237 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:29.420 Often I wasn't. 238 00:17:29.420 --> 00:17:30.480 I ran off with the money. 239 00:17:30.580 --> 00:17:31.360 You didn't move. 240 00:17:31.460 --> 00:17:32.380 You lost your $10,000. 241 00:17:33.280 --> 00:17:36.180 Again, a business responding to criticism by the customers. 242 00:17:36.340 --> 00:17:37.480 That soon changed. 243 00:17:37.860 --> 00:17:38.880 For a couple of years, 244 00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:42.520 the method was that you'd pay a proportion of the money up front. 245 00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:45.100 So you'd give the smuggler, say, 50% of the money, 246 00:17:45.180 --> 00:17:48.680 and you'd pay the balance upon confirmation that your son, 247 00:17:48.760 --> 00:17:49.620 and it normally is your son, 248 00:17:49.700 --> 00:17:52.220 has arrived safely in the destination to which he's going. 249 00:17:52.460 --> 00:17:53.700 The problem with that is, 250 00:17:53.700 --> 00:17:56.900 that it opens up the possibility for exploitation. 251 00:17:57.460 --> 00:17:59.680 You arrive in Australia as a migrant, 252 00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:04.540 you still owe $2,500 or whatever it is to the migrant smuggler back at home, 253 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:06.460 and that debt means that you can be exploited. 254 00:18:06.600 --> 00:18:08.480 You can be forced into prostitution, 255 00:18:08.620 --> 00:18:10.360 you can be forced into exploitative situations, 256 00:18:10.520 --> 00:18:11.440 and so on and so forth. 257 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:14.360 And this is where the concept of migrant smuggling and human trafficking 258 00:18:14.360 --> 00:18:16.040 begin to blur into one another. 259 00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:19.800 Again, in response to complaints from potential customers, 260 00:18:19.960 --> 00:18:20.660 that changed, 261 00:18:20.740 --> 00:18:23.020 and we now have what is effectively an escrow system, 262 00:18:23.020 --> 00:18:24.600 a money-back guarantee, 263 00:18:24.800 --> 00:18:26.500 a low-risk investment for families. 264 00:18:26.580 --> 00:18:28.180 The money is deposited with a third party, 265 00:18:28.300 --> 00:18:30.660 and then released once someone has arrived safely 266 00:18:30.660 --> 00:18:32.280 in the destination to which they're going. 267 00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:34.260 So we've seen how much it costs, 268 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:36.580 we've looked at how families raise the money, 269 00:18:36.680 --> 00:18:39.060 we've looked at how the money is actually transacted 270 00:18:39.060 --> 00:18:40.100 and passed over to smugglers. 271 00:18:40.200 --> 00:18:43.540 Let's look briefly at how smugglers themselves spend the money. 272 00:18:44.580 --> 00:18:46.680 I think it's really important when talking about smuggling 273 00:18:46.680 --> 00:18:49.900 to move away from a kind of generalization, 274 00:18:49.900 --> 00:18:52.260 which I think we all have, and it's understandable, I think, 275 00:18:52.260 --> 00:18:53.240 especially given the press, 276 00:18:53.320 --> 00:18:55.800 a generalization that somehow smugglers are arch criminals. 277 00:18:56.200 --> 00:18:58.580 They're some sort of James Bond-esque baddies 278 00:18:58.580 --> 00:19:01.260 who are kind of in the middle of this cruel and evil network 279 00:19:01.260 --> 00:19:03.760 of manipulation and evil. 280 00:19:04.900 --> 00:19:06.720 That may be the case in certain circumstances, 281 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:08.660 and I think the so-called snakeheads in China 282 00:19:08.660 --> 00:19:11.560 probably do fit that James Bond sort of model, 283 00:19:11.660 --> 00:19:13.800 but in most places in the world, they don't. 284 00:19:14.800 --> 00:19:16.660 Smugglers who move people from Mexico to the USA, 285 00:19:16.800 --> 00:19:18.300 so-called mom-and-pop industries, 286 00:19:18.420 --> 00:19:20.380 there are a couple of people who move you across the border 287 00:19:20.380 --> 00:19:22.240 in a fairly low-tech and fairly cheap way. 288 00:19:22.260 --> 00:19:24.820 In Pakistan and Afghanistan, 289 00:19:25.240 --> 00:19:28.280 it's normally people who have completely legitimate jobs 290 00:19:28.280 --> 00:19:30.540 and are making a bit of money on the side. 291 00:19:30.840 --> 00:19:33.480 So the normal contact usually in Afghanistan and Pakistan 292 00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:34.360 is a travel agent. 293 00:19:34.780 --> 00:19:37.220 He'll close the door at 5 o'clock on his business, 294 00:19:37.360 --> 00:19:38.000 he'll take you downstairs, 295 00:19:38.360 --> 00:19:40.560 and he'll start to discuss other issues, 296 00:19:40.800 --> 00:19:43.020 more illegal issues perhaps over the table. 297 00:19:43.260 --> 00:19:45.340 He will then work through a network of people 298 00:19:45.340 --> 00:19:46.500 to make smuggling happen. 299 00:19:46.860 --> 00:19:48.340 And again, this echoes something, I think, 300 00:19:48.340 --> 00:19:50.880 a very interesting discussion we had with Julian Garside yesterday. 301 00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:54.460 We need to get away from the idea that smugglers are always evil. 302 00:19:55.100 --> 00:19:56.980 In some cases, in some circumstances, 303 00:19:57.160 --> 00:19:59.480 smugglers are people who are helping people get out of harm's way. 304 00:19:59.980 --> 00:20:01.860 Oskar Schindler was a smuggler and so on and so forth. 305 00:20:01.920 --> 00:20:03.480 We know those kinds of ideas. 306 00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:05.760 So I think we need to have a bit more sophisticated idea 307 00:20:05.760 --> 00:20:08.020 of what smuggling is and who smugglers are. 308 00:20:08.900 --> 00:20:10.300 Once the initial contact, 309 00:20:10.560 --> 00:20:12.640 the travel agent normally in Pakistan or Afghanistan, 310 00:20:13.040 --> 00:20:14.000 receives the money, 311 00:20:15.220 --> 00:20:16.520 of course the money is not received, 312 00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:17.540 it's with a third party, 313 00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:18.720 but once the pledge has been made 314 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:20.260 and the money is deposited with the third party, 315 00:20:20.260 --> 00:20:23.260 he then has to spend a large proportion of that money 316 00:20:23.260 --> 00:20:24.880 to make smuggling work. 317 00:20:25.140 --> 00:20:27.640 He needs to find someone who perhaps can supply 318 00:20:27.640 --> 00:20:29.560 a stolen or forged passport, 319 00:20:29.860 --> 00:20:31.080 who can forge a visa. 320 00:20:31.240 --> 00:20:34.120 He needs to pay boatmen or truck drivers, 321 00:20:34.280 --> 00:20:35.240 immigration officials, 322 00:20:35.600 --> 00:20:37.380 customs officials and so on and so forth. 323 00:20:37.860 --> 00:20:39.940 Any of you who have flown internationally recently, 324 00:20:40.020 --> 00:20:40.840 I've done it very recently, 325 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:43.340 you show your passport three times when you fly internationally. 326 00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:45.640 You show it when you check in to deposit your bag, 327 00:20:45.820 --> 00:20:47.940 you show it as you go through into the departure lounge, 328 00:20:48.100 --> 00:20:50.220 and then finally you show it just before you get on the aeroplane. 329 00:20:50.260 --> 00:20:52.020 Three people there who need driving 330 00:20:52.020 --> 00:20:55.040 to make sure that you get through that system onto the aeroplane. 331 00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:57.600 And so a lot of money, in my research, 332 00:20:57.620 --> 00:21:00.220 around 50% is spent by the initial contact 333 00:21:00.220 --> 00:21:02.620 in making this work and dispersing the money 334 00:21:02.620 --> 00:21:03.840 around the network of people 335 00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:05.700 who are involved in making smuggling work. 336 00:21:05.900 --> 00:21:07.600 And I want to come back to this because this is really interesting. 337 00:21:08.120 --> 00:21:10.800 What I'm saying here is that smugglers are dispersing money 338 00:21:10.800 --> 00:21:13.100 to their network before they've actually received the money. 339 00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:16.000 The greatest economic risk in this entire process 340 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:17.080 is that of the smuggler. 341 00:21:17.280 --> 00:21:19.480 He needs to pay $7,000 up front 342 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:20.500 to make the smuggling work, 343 00:21:20.700 --> 00:21:23.240 and only when it works does he get the $14,000 paid, 344 00:21:23.480 --> 00:21:26.180 and so he recoups his 50% of around $7,000. 345 00:21:26.360 --> 00:21:28.280 That's quite an interesting observation, I think, 346 00:21:28.360 --> 00:21:31.080 and there are certainly policy implications around that. 347 00:21:31.940 --> 00:21:33.220 Let's continue to follow the money. 348 00:21:33.300 --> 00:21:35.660 I'm going to skip the traumas of the journey. 349 00:21:35.700 --> 00:21:36.680 I can come back to you, if you wish, 350 00:21:36.760 --> 00:21:38.860 with many rather depressing stories about the journey 351 00:21:38.860 --> 00:21:40.400 and how it works. 352 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:43.940 85% of the families that I spoke to 353 00:21:43.940 --> 00:21:45.180 in both Afghanistan and Pakistan 354 00:21:45.180 --> 00:21:47.180 who had paid to have a son, 355 00:21:47.320 --> 00:21:48.740 it normally was the eldest son, 356 00:21:49.580 --> 00:21:52.020 had received money in the form of remittances 357 00:21:52.020 --> 00:21:53.760 from people who'd moved abroad. 358 00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:57.000 I think there are some really important implications there. 359 00:21:57.220 --> 00:21:58.740 One is that, of course, what this means 360 00:21:58.740 --> 00:22:00.020 is these people were finding work. 361 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:03.160 When we look at migrant smuggling, 362 00:22:03.360 --> 00:22:04.840 when we look at irregular migration, 363 00:22:05.060 --> 00:22:06.740 we tend to focus on the supply side. 364 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:08.960 We tend to think of desperate people 365 00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:10.360 living in poor countries, 366 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:11.820 perhaps fleeing conflict and persecution, 367 00:22:12.080 --> 00:22:13.360 who need to get out of harm's way 368 00:22:13.360 --> 00:22:14.660 or who are trying to improve their lives 369 00:22:14.660 --> 00:22:16.060 and pay smugglers to do so. 370 00:22:16.420 --> 00:22:17.940 Irregular migration wouldn't exist 371 00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:20.460 if there wasn't also a demand for their labour. 372 00:22:21.160 --> 00:22:23.140 There are something like 40 million 373 00:22:23.140 --> 00:22:25.140 irregular migrants in the world today, 374 00:22:25.300 --> 00:22:28.040 a third of them, 12 million in the USA alone, 375 00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:30.480 and believe me, those 12 million Mexicans in the USA 376 00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:33.520 work hard and prop up the US economy in certain sectors. 377 00:22:33.740 --> 00:22:37.240 Our economies depend on the work of irregular migration. 378 00:22:37.660 --> 00:22:40.920 So one part of the equation is to get rid of the supply, 379 00:22:41.040 --> 00:22:42.280 to make sure that people are safe 380 00:22:42.280 --> 00:22:43.640 or can earn money at home, 381 00:22:43.740 --> 00:22:45.740 but the other is to make sure that we don't have a demand 382 00:22:45.740 --> 00:22:47.920 for their particular work in destination countries. 383 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:50.040 And I think we need to look at the two sides of it. 384 00:22:50.120 --> 00:22:52.440 Most people in my sample who were smuggled 385 00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:54.020 found work relatively easily 386 00:22:54.020 --> 00:22:56.440 and were sending home significant sums of money 387 00:22:56.440 --> 00:22:58.160 as a result of the work that they found. 388 00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:00.760 The annual remittances, money sent back 389 00:23:00.760 --> 00:23:03.860 by migrants who'd been smuggled from these families 390 00:23:03.860 --> 00:23:05.640 or via these smugglers that I spoke to, 391 00:23:05.720 --> 00:23:09.740 the average was US$3,750 a year. 392 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.440 These were irregular migrants sending home, on average, 393 00:23:13.640 --> 00:23:15.540 and it ranged from in one case just US$100 394 00:23:15.540 --> 00:23:17.580 to another incredible case, US$10,000, 395 00:23:17.700 --> 00:23:17.900 and I think that's a lot. 396 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:19.980 I'm not sure that I believe that sum. 397 00:23:20.140 --> 00:23:22.400 But on average, it was reported to me, 398 00:23:22.460 --> 00:23:25.620 something like US$3,750 sent home 399 00:23:25.620 --> 00:23:27.320 by people who'd been smuggled abroad. 400 00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:29.180 Now, we can discuss later, 401 00:23:29.240 --> 00:23:30.580