Migrant's agency in the smuggling process: The perspectives of smuggled migrants in the Netherlands

Ilse van Liempt*, Jeroen Doomernik

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This paper focuses on migrants who have been smuggled to the Netherlands from three regions: Iraq, Horn of Africa, and the former Soviet Union. The central questions are: to what extent do smugglers give direction to migration; and how much autonomy do migrants themselves have in deciding where they want to travel? The common assumption is that smuggled migrants are recruited by criminals and have little to say within the migration process. But the relationship between the smugglers and the smuggled seems more diverse. Three different types of interactions between the smuggler and the migrant are identified. Subsequently the question is addressed how this process is related to, and interacts with, the context of Dutch migration policies. The increased crackdown of the past decade on unsolicited migration in the Netherlands has not reduced the number of irregular entries. Moreover, what we see is that the involvement of human smugglers has been on the increase, and this involvement has shaped the migration process substantially.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)165-190
Number of pages26
JournalInternational Migration
Volume44
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2006
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Copyright:
Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

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