The Strength to Carry On

A new study on “Resilience and Vulnerability to Trafficking and Other Abuses among People Travelling along Migration Routes to Europe” published by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) provides fresh insights into the factors that make people traveling along the European migration routes particularly vulnerable to human trafficking and other types of abuses.

In this document you can find about the migration routes in Europe, including policy developments and people on the move, as well as particular migration routes – Balkan, Eastern and Central Mediterranean Routes. Resilience and Vulnerabilities are discussed, followed by the analysis of different forms of trafficking in this context, challenges for identification and traffickers. The document ends with a set of conclusions and recommendations.

Some of the key findings are:

• Identification of human trafficking cases is still an issue, with very few cases reaching authorities. According to the research, teenage boys on the move are particularly vulnerable to trafficking but the least likely to be identified.
• Migrant smuggling is a dominant component in most of the human trafficking and other abuses cases.
• The experience of migrant and refugee people is highly dependent on the route they take.