The Hague 2025

Young Visions of Peace and Security

DROI

Committee on Human Rights

Crimes of compassion: Human smugglers are increasingly associated with violence and human rights violations, and criminal groups are known to adapt methods and routes to avoid new legislation and maximise profit. At the same time, Amnesty International has found that people across Europe are being prosecuted for helping refugees under the premise of ‘anti-smuggling’ laws. What steps should the EU take to help its residents display solidarity towards those in need, while combating criminal human smuggler groups?
Marius Bommier (CH)

Executive Summary 

Europol estimates that in 2021, 90% of irregular migrants in the EU entered using smugglers. This number is on the rise, as increased border security and lack of legal pathways push migrants to seek out smugglers. Migrant smuggling is highly lucrative, can endanger migrants, and is often linked to other crimes. However, the archetype of the criminal smuggler is just one of the many different groups who help migrants into the EU. Crucially, on the other end of the spectrum, citizens and non-governmental organisations deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance where states fail to guarantee the safety of migrants — which is an obligation under international law. Smuggling, humanitarian aid, and everything in between happen not only on the external borders of the EU, but also within the EU as migrants continue their journey.

In response to smuggling, and in extension of the political project to curb immigration, the EU and its Member States have introduced legislation criminalising the facilitation of irregular entry into the EU. In practice, these laws have been used to systematically repress humanitarian aid to migrants. People have been prosecuted for rescue at sea, help in the mountains, offering shelter, and even protesting. 

Beyond legal crackdown, citizens and organisations showing solidarity also face administrative obstacles, stigmatisation, and harassment and violence both from police and anti-immigration groups.

What would a just, peaceful, and secure response to migrant smuggling and solidarity look like?

Table Of Contents
  1. Committee on Human Rights
  2. Introduction 
  3. Key Stakeholders
  4. Measures in place
  5. Fundamental Challenges
  6. Outlook

If you prefer to read or print this Topic Overview as a static PDF document, you can download it here.

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Introduction 

While irregular migration into the EU was near its all-time low as of 2024, migrant smuggling remains high and is expected to rise.1,2 Europol estimates that in 2021, over 90% of irregular migrants arriving in Europe did so through migrant smuggling networks. Migrant smuggling is a highly profitable activity. At the peak of the so-called ‘migration crisis’ in 2015, smuggling networks are estimated to have made EUR 3 – 6 billion profits3. There are two main explanations as to why it is an increasing trend. On the one hand, more secure external borders make it more difficult to irregularly cross them without “professional” help. On the other hand, it has become difficult to immigrate into the EU regularly, and there is a (weak) consensus that the EU lacks legal migration pathways4. Migrant smuggling is considered a threat to security because it can bring violence and undermines state sovereignty. Furthermore, it is not regulated, and the lack of safety precautions has resulted in significant loss of life at sea or in transit5.

However, legislation designed to tackle migrant smuggling has been the most used tool to prosecute migrants (61% of cases ) and humanitarian assistance to migrants (59.8% of cases), most notably NGO search-and rescue (SAR) activity6. In 2019, 171 humanitarians had been prosecuted for facilitating irregular entry7. Read more about it in Amnesty’s introduction to the topic, and their full report:

MORE INFORMATION ON AMNESTY’S INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC AND THEIR FULL REPORT
Solidarity on trial
Read more

Key Stakeholders

Migrants are people travelling from one country to another with the intention of settling there. Their motivations differ widely, as do their means of entry, which range from visas and to irregular crossing of borders. Refugees are a specific legal category of migrants benefitting from more extensive protection under international law. Governments like to frame migrants as ‘victims of smuggling’.8 Why is that so, and is this an accurate assessment?

Migrant smugglers, also called facilitators, are a very diverse and contested category. Generally, they are understood to be actors who assist migrants in the irregular crossing of borders for financial or material gain. They operate both on the external borders of the EU and within the Union, where they facilitate secondary movements.
Some migrant smugglers operate in organised criminal networks and are connected to  further criminal activity, including document fraud, smuggling in goods and narcotics, and human trafficking.9 Can and should they be included as a stakeholder in policy-making, and how?

Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) can be anything from private citizens acting individually to volunteers working in international NGOs. HRDs can also be migrants themselves, regular or irregular. Because of the legal ambiguity of their work, organisations can struggle to access financing and other crucial resources.10

Watch dogs scrutinise European policy and practices and their effects on HRDs and migrants. They advocate against the criminalisation of solidarity. They can be civil society organisations (CSOs) or National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). Amnesty International is particularly well-known, but other relevant ones include the Platform for Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) or the Research Social Platform on Migration (ReSoma).11

The Directorate-General on Home Affairs and Migration (DG HOME) directs the EU’s policy on migration. Security is a shared competence of the EU, meaning the Union can pass legislation that is legally binding.

Europol is the European policing cooperation force. It enables information sharing and coordinates Europe-wide policing efforts between Member States. In 2016, it set up the European Migrant Smuggling Centre (EMSC) which gathers data on migrant smuggling.

The European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) enforces Europe’s external borders in cooperation with partners, including non-European countries.

Member States have their own laws on migrant smuggling, and are the ones enforcing European laws through their police and judicial systems. Many Member States have passed domestic legal acts criminalising solidarity. In the current political climate, they share a tendency to try and limit immigration as much as they can. Therefore, several Member States advocate for very broad definitions of migrant smuggling to make prosecution easier.12

Measures in place

Human Rights are legally binding principles enshrined in multiple texts of international law. In Europe, these include the United Nations’ (UN) International Bill of Rights, the Council of Europe’s European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The EU and its Member states are obligated to guarantee these rights to everyone, regardless of their legal status. International law also recognises and aims to protect HRDs under a set of guidelines. However, these are not legally binding, and do not introduce new rights. Instead, they argue that, for instance, the right to freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment includes the right to intervene against such treatment or to protest against it.13

The Facilitation Directive  is a legally binding text currently in force.14 It was introduced in 2002 to establish a common legal definition of smuggling and force Member States to prosecute it as a crime. It has been used to systematically prosecute acts of solidarity, has not been complied with in many Member States, and does not protect humanitarian aid.15
The European Parliament and the Council recently proposed a text that would replace the Facilitation Directive, amend its definition of migrant smuggling, and impose minimum penalties for smugglers.16

The EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum is a set of legal texts  which entered into force in 2024 and is an update to ‘migration management’ policies. It promises to secure external borders, streamline procedures, and share responsibility between Member States.17 It has been heavily criticised by civil society and academia for increasing the risk of human rights violations, restricting secondary movement, and failing to provide safe, regular pathways for migration.18 19,How might this affect migrants and migrant smuggling?

Campaigns supporting HRDs are the only support HRDs have had when facing repression. These are grassroots efforts by civil society and individuals to defend the humanitarian acts and oppose the criminalisation of solidarity in general. Forms of support include protest actions, reports on the shortcomings of European laws and judicial systems, advocating for solidarity with migrants, and many more.

Protesters showing solidarity with the Iuventa Crew, on trial for rescuing migrants at sea
Demonstration in solidarity with Sean Binder and Sarah Mardini, aid workers on trial over refugee rescues in Athens

Fundamental Challenges

Defining migrant smuggling

Legally, HRDs can only be prosecuted under anti-smuggling laws because the current European definition of facilitation can be applied both to migrant smugglers and HRDs. It differs from the one used in the UN20 because assistance does not require material benefit to qualify as smuggling.21 Furthermore, it merely allows that Member States ‘may decide not to impose sanctions’ on humanitarian assistance. One reason for this legal ambiguity is that the archetype of the “evil, criminal smuggler” is useful politically, but factually inaccurate.22 Facilitators are a highly diverse group, with very diverse motivations. Even financial benefit does not make them inherently exploitative.23

In November 2023, the European Parliament and the Council proposed a new Directive to replace the Facilitation Directive following consultations with civil society. Amongst much more, this would add the condition of material benefit to the definition of facilitation . Nonetheless, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) expressed concern that it still leaves space for Member States to criminalise assistance even where there is no financial gain, and that the clause on financial gain is too vague and could include common services such as taxi drivers or landlords.24 In a much more critical detailed report, PICUM found that the new text is highly likely to further the criminalisation of solidarity by creating new offences and encoding penalties against NGOs into law.25

However, it is important to remember HRDs do not only face legal obstacles. They are often targets of violent action from far-right anti-immigration groups, or of de facto repression through police harassment and violence, and military interference with SAR. They have also been stigmatised in mainstream media, and are sometimes even called a ‘pull-factor’. And even when found innocent, trials against HRDs  take an average of  3.5 years and put great strain on individuals.26

European interests vs human rights

In the past decade, immigration has been a key political issue, and it is now framed as a security issue (and is therefore used as a security threat, for instance by Belarus). 27Therefore, controlling migration has become a key political priority.28 Member States are keen on policing and deterring immigration, especially irregular border crossings. Protecting migrants is not identified as a political priority, although it is still a necessity under international law.29 In other words, European security takes precedence over migrant safety. As a result, migration control makes migration unsafe and often violates migrants’ human rights30 — making humanitarian assistance necessary in the first place. Overall, repressing migrant smuggling is approached with the primary goal of curbing irregular migration rather than tackling crime.

To what extent do you think  irregular migration is a threat to European security? Can you find what the UN says about this?

Because tackling irregular migration and migrant smuggling is considered politically important, actors like to be able to show how much they are doing. The EMSC’s updates section is a good example of how central numbers are in this communication.31 What effect can the pressure to quantify success have on policing?

Everyday border-guards

To reduce its workload of policing and deporting irregular migrants, European states make it part of citizen’s jobs to enforce their migration policy and police migrants. They do so for example by making it illegal to ‘help’ irregular migrants by providing things such as work, housing, or in some cases even healthcare. This in turn forces employers, landlords or reception workers to check whether migrants arrived through regular channels through systematic and increasingly intrusive background checks. In this way, large sections of the public are made to act as ‘everyday border-guards’.32 This contributes to a hostile environment for irregular migrants, but also has a negative impact on regular migrants, as they now have to jump through hoops to prove their regular status. Does this help tackle smuggling?

Outlook

  • How can migrants and HRDs be involved in policy-making on migrant smuggling?
  • Should policy on migration and migrant smuggling be informed by ethical considerations? To what extent is this the case today?
  • Migrant smuggling is a non-issue in the case of Ukrainian migrants, and solidarity efforts are very strong. What is different about their situation legally and in practice? How is solidarity encouraged and discouraged? The podcast below ties into these questions and discusses personal experiences.
PODCAST
Europe: Building solidarity with Migrants and Refugees
Listen more
  • What forms of solidarity would you appreciate as a migrant or refugee in a new country? How are these facilitated or criminalised in the EU today?
  • Would a decrease in solidarity with migrants work result in a decrease in migration?
    How ‘manageable’ is migration?

FOOTNOTES

  1. European Council and Council of the EU (2025). Irregular arrivals to the EU – 2008-2024. Link ↩︎
  2. European Parliamentary Research Service (2025). The facilitation of irregular migration by
    criminal networks. Link ↩︎
  3. Europol (2022). Facilitation of Illegal Immigration. Link ↩︎
  4. European Parliamentary Research Service (2021). Understanding EU action against migrant smuggling. Link ↩︎
  5. Natasha Mellersh (2025). Record number of migrant deaths in 2024 as Atlantic crossings to Spain soar. Infomigrants. Link ↩︎
  6.  PICUM (2024). Cases of criminalisation of migration and solidarity in the EU in 2023. Link ↩︎
  7. ReSoma (2020). The criminalisation of solidarity in Europe. Link ↩︎
  8. Andrew Fallone (2021). ‘Here we go again:’ Misleading European Union Communications on Human Smuggling. Migration Policy Centre Link ↩︎
  9. European Parliamentary Research Service (2021). Understanding EU action against migrant smuggling. Link ↩︎
  10. Red Cross EU Office (2021). Protecting the humanitarian space to access and support migrants. Link ↩︎
  11. three very useful names for further research 🙂 ↩︎
  12. Birgitt Sippel (2024). Minimum rules to prevent and counter the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit and stay in the Union. European Parliament Legislative Train Schedule. Link ↩︎
  13. International Commission of Jurists (2021). Criminalization of humanitarian and other support and assistance to migrants and the defence of their human rights in the EU. Link ↩︎
  14. Council Directive 2002/90/EC of 28 November 2002 defining the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit and residence. Link ↩︎
  15. Laura Schack (2020). Humanitarian Smugglers? The EU Facilitation Directive and the Criminalisation of Civil Society. University of Oxford Border Criminologies Blog. Link ↩︎
  16. Birgitt Sippel (2024). Minimum rules to prevent and counter the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit and stay in the Union. European Parliament Legislative Train Schedule. Link ↩︎
  17. European Commission (2024). Pact On Migration and Asylum. Link ↩︎
  18. Steve Peers (2024). The new EU asylum laws: taking rights half-seriously. Yearbook of European Law. Link
    ↩︎
  19. Human Rights Watch (2024). Civil Society Organisations Call on MEPs to Vote Down Harmful EU Migration Pact. Link ↩︎
  20. That definition is outlined in  the UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. Link ↩︎
  21. Laura Schack (2020). Humanitarian Smugglers? The EU Facilitation Directive and the Criminalisation of Civil Society. University of Oxford Border Criminologies Blog. Link ↩︎
  22. Andrew Fallone (2021). ‘Here we go again:’ Misleading European Union Communications on Human Smuggling. Migration Policy Centre Link ↩︎
  23. Peter Tinti, Tuesday Reitano (2017). Good and evil: the role of smugglers in the migrant crisis [excerpt]. Oxford University Press Blog. Link ↩︎
  24. EESC (2024). Anti-smuggling package. Link (download the opinion) ↩︎
  25. PICUM (2024). How the New EU Facilitation Directive Furthers the Criminalisation of Migrants and Human Rights Defenders. Link ↩︎
  26.  ReSoma (2020). The criminalisation of solidarity in Europe. Link ↩︎
  27. Jorge Liboreiro (2025). At the Poland-Belarus border, security and migration merge into one. Link ↩︎
  28. European Commission (2024). European Union Priorities 2024-2029. Link ↩︎
  29. (2015). Migrant lives should not be the priority, EU border chief says. The Irish Times. Link ↩︎
  30. Pushbacks, detention, and violence breach the right to freedom from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. ↩︎
  31. Europol (2025). The European Migrant Smuggling Centre — EMSC. Link (scroll down) ↩︎
  32. Nira Yuval-Davies, Georgie Wemyss, Kathrin Cassidy (2017). Everyday Bordering, Belonging and the Reorientation of British Immigration Legislation. British Sociological Association. Link ↩︎