Human Trafficking-Terrorism Nexus: When Violent Non-State Actors Engage in the Modern-Day Slavery

• DOI: 10.1177/00220027211010904
• Date: 01 October 2021
• Author: Nazli Avdan,Mariya Omelicheva
• Published date: 01 October 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Human Trafficking-

Terrorism Nexus: When

Violent Non-State Actors

Engage in the Modern-

Day Slavery

Nazli Avdan

1

, and Mariya Omelicheva

2

Abstract

Why do some militant organizations participate in human trafficking? We investigate

this question by introducing a new dataset that records insurgent organizations’

involvement in four types of human trafficking: sexual exploitation, forced recruit-

ment, slavery, and kidnapping. Marrying our data to the BAAD2I population of

insurgent organizations, we uncover the organizational attributes related to human

trafficking. We find that groups with wide alliance networks and territorial control

are more likely to commit human trafficking. Organizations that are losing command

of the territory and suffering rank-and-file losses are also more likely to turn to

human trafficking. Our study sheds theoretical light on insurgent groups’ involve-

ment in crime. It also contributes to the empirical scholarship on sexual violence by

violent groups by studying different forms of human trafficking in both conflict and

non-conflict environments. Our paper presents an original dataset and empirical

analysis of insurgent groups’ human trafficking patterns.

Keywords

human rights, international security, terror networks, asymmetric conflict,

terrorism

1

Department of Political Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

2

National War College, National Defense University, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nazli Avdan, Department of Political Science, University of Kansas, 1541 Lilac Lane, Lawrence, KS 66045,

USA.

Email: navdan@ku.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2021, Vol. 65(9) 1576-1606

ªThe Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00220027211010904

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Introduction

In April 2014, Boko Haram, a jihadist militant organization with the home base in

northeastern Nigeria, kidnapped 276 girls from a boarding school in Chibok. The

kidnapping raid marked a chilling evolution in Boko Haram’s use of women and

girls in its suicide operations in addition to sexual slavery, forced marriages, and

domestic servitude (Kenny and Malik 2019; Pearson 2018; Warner and Matfess

2017). The same year the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) made headlines

with its appalling campaign of enslavement and human trade endorsed by an official

policy on treating the exploited women (Malik 2017). On the other hand, the Al

Qaeda branch in Syria (also known as Al-Nusra and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) operating

next to and in competition with ISIS and other insurgent groups in Syria and Iraq,

raised its revenue from kidnapping for ransom but has not been known for its

participation in the human trade (Fanusie and Entz 2017). Hezbollah, a political

and militant Shi’ite Muslim group, has engaged in large-scale drug trafficking and

smuggling of a variety of legal and illegal items using increasingly complex smug-

gling schemes but has stayed away from human trafficking (Fanusie and Entz 2017).

Why do some insurgent groups engage in human trafficking activities?

1

This

study systematically examines this question. While the nexus between terrorism,

conflict-related sexual violence, and trafficking in human beings is not new, it has

only recently been recognized at the highest level by the United Nations Security

Council, other UN agencies, and individual governments (Counterterrorism Com-

mittee Executive Directorate [CTED] 2018; UNODC 2018; UN Security Council

2016). These studies have advanced our understanding of insurgent groups’ motives

and modus operandi, yet, the state of knowledge on human trafficking by insurgents

is still dominated by two simplistic views. The first and dominant argument is that

human trafficking plays an increasing role in the operations of violent groups. With

the reduction in state sponsorship and global efforts at disrupting money-laundering

and terrorist financing, insurgent groups have turned to various criminal activities

for raising funds in support of their operations (Kloer 2009; Roth and Sever 2007).

The cash motives that drive criminal organizations to engage in crime also drive

violent groups’ participation in human trade.

The second theme has emerged suggesting that the permissive regional a nd

global environments characterized by high volumes of people displaced or affected

by conflict and natural disasters, as well as social and economic maladies that have

resulted in significant number of under-employed youth have allowed insurgent and

criminal groups to take advantage of the highly lucrative and low risk crime of

human trade (Basra, Neumann, and Brunner 2016; Bigio and Vogelstein 2019;

Cockayne and Walker 2016; Farley 2018; FATF-APG 2018). Global communica-

tions and transportation technologies have facilitated activities of criminal syndi-

cates and insurgent groups, while the government complicity has strengthened

the backbone of crime and violence enabled by corruption (Shelley 2010, 2020;

Traughber 2007).

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