My name is Sheldon Zhang, and I'm currently the chair of the School of Criminology and Justice Studies at University of Massachusetts Lowell. I've been working on smuggling and trafficking issues on and off for about two decades. I wouldn't say I have tons of experience, but I certainly know enough to be dangerous in the field.
I think the main problem, or the main challenge that we face as researchers of human smuggling activities, remains our inability to influence the dominant narrative that has permeated throughout government policies, global policies, as well as in global development investments and resource deployments. These views on human smuggling are still very much influenced by the criminal justice narrative or framework. In other words, you have a criminal or group of criminals, who are taking advantage of vulnerable people who want to migrate, exploiting them ruthlessly, and treating their lives cavalierly or frivolously for profit.
Anti-smuggling money is not only ill-spent, but it accomplishes very little because the desire to migrate is neither generated nor sustained by human smuggling.
