Conclusion: Human Smuggling, Human Trafficking and the Role of Communication Technologies

Abstract

The two case studies from Italy and the UK presented in this book offer compelling evidence about the nature and the extent of the use of ICT in the business of human smuggling and trafficking. As such, these findings should be hardly surprising, as, twenty years into the twenty-first century, the use of technologies such as mobile phones and smartphones, the internet and the social web is ubiquitous in the everyday life across the globe. It is inevitable that the people involved in the business of human smuggling and trafficking tap into the potential of these technologies—there is really no reason to assume that illegal entrepreneurs will not take recourse to the means that every other entrepreneur in every other business sector uses, just as their clients will use the very same technologies as a matter of course. In fact, what is surprising is the relatively slow ignition of academic research into this aspect of the business, to such an extent that our effort addresses a knowledge gap that, in 2019, is still glaring.