Rural-to-urban migration has been occurring globally for decades. This type of migration is largely driven by the perception of greater economic opportunity in urban areas. Internal migrants are usually young, able-bodied, but untrained and undereducated persons with limited experience in an urban setting. This set of traits creates a situation in which a sex-trafficking recruiter posing as a legitimate recruiter can manipulate migrants into giving consent, via false promises of employment and financial security: Too often, the reality that awaits the internal migrants is a position of destitution and subjugation to physical, mental, or sexual abuse.

The same is true for those migrants who seek to leave their home country in pursuit of a more lucrative economy abroad, regardless of whether their initial departure is instigated by political or social crisis or natural disaster. Lack of education precludes the innovation and entrepreneurship that are necessary for an adequate response to the crises, which makes them overwhelming reasons for the migrants to leave their country. Because of stringent control over legal border passages and processes to obtain legal documentation that may be difficult to navigate, many migrants find it easier to purchase the services of a smuggler to cross borders. Although some smugglers do not plan to do harm, many do take advantage of the unbalanced relationship and exploit their clients by seizing any legal documentation or belongings and forcing them into various types of degrading labor for no monetary pay—just the chance to survive.

Especially tragic in human trafficking is that a large percentage of victims is only drawn into the industry because they are seeking to improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the lives of their communities. Human trafficking most demoralizes those who seek self-sufficiency and success most fervently. So often the ones who actively seek improvement of their economic statuses are targeted by traffickers who see them as commodities rather than people. Many traffickers likely seek to turn a profit, to bankroll other criminal activities such as arms dealing, drug smuggling, or terrorism. Yet—shockingly—some traffickers truly believe that what they are doing is right or just.

Traffickers who only seek to turn a profit could likely be convinced—some more easily than others—to pursue other endeavors if global organizations would make salient the negative consequences of trafficking and if global authorities would enforce appropriate laws and punishments against it. But the recent mass kidnapping of teenage girls from a government high school in Chibok, Nigeria, illustrates the most deep-seated and therefore hardest-to-combat reason for trafficking in humans. Groups like Boko Haram—whose leader proclaims, laughing, that God “commanded” him to sell women in a market for humans (Abubakar & Levs, 2014)—are unlikely to be coerced by threats or persuaded by reason.

Boko Haram is a designated terrorist group, but so far its abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls has been treated like a tragedy rather than a terrorist act. Human trafficking is a form of terrorism: It not only terrifies the trafficked individuals but also deeply affects the security and stability of their community and can prevent development by any means, as foreign NGOs claim security concerns, and as grassroots movements are stunted by fear.

To end human trafficking, it must be treated like the terrorist act it is. Trafficking networks—ranging from Boko Haram to MS-13, to lesser-known operators in Southeast Asia and the Balkans—must be treated like terrorist networks. Their trafficking endeavors fund other acts of terrorism and contribute to instability in their regions of action. A great body of literature pertains to how to break apart insurgent and terrorist organizations effectively. Many people have served their countries by spending decades of their lives to bring down those groups. It is high time that their skills and experience be put to educating partners in countries where trafficking is a major problem on how to support at-risk communities through security measures, and how to effectively target, arrest, prosecute, convict, and jail the perpetrators of this vile trade. 

Read the rest and more in the latest issue of  International Affairs Forum, focusing on migration and statelessness, by clicking HERE.