Is human trafficking the third largest criminal economy?

In this article, DIIS researcher Sine Plambech explores the economy of human trafficking.

The literature and politics on human trafficking economies are commonly relegated to the realm that focuses on profits for criminal networks and pimps, in particular recirculating the claim that human trafficking is the “third largest” criminal economy after drugs and weapons.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Nigerian sex worker migrants conducted in Benin City, Nigeria, in 2011 and 2012, this study brings together four otherwise isolated migration economies – facilitation, remittances, deportation, and rescue – and suggests that we have to examine multiple sites and relink these in order to more fully understand the economy of human trafficking.