Introduction

Child smuggling from Somali territories is now so widespread that it has become a critical informal institution. The phenomenon is not restricted to privileged or "elite" children - as widely held in the receiving countries - but has become a typical responsibility within the wider Somali family. Those who arrange the transportation of children out of Somalia now consider it a legitimate strategy of survival.³ The more respectable term "agent" is used for smugglers.

"If an agent manages to smuggle five children out in the course of 30 days, he becomes flavour of the month. There will be people queuing outside his offices," said Abdullahe Allas, director of the Dr Ismail Jumaleh Human Rights Organisation in Mogadishu. A common phenomenon in the capital, Abdullahe said child smuggling had become widespread enough for it to enter the conversation of modern Somali society. It is known colloquially as hambaar, which means to ride piggyback. "When someone looks tired, people say: he did not sleep last night; is his daughter hambaar?"

Smuggling practices

There is no precise method of establishing how many children are smuggled out of Somali territories. Immigration figures in European countries show that Somalis are among the largest groups of unaccompanied children, but the data is based only on those children applying for asylum.

Smugglers in Mogadishu told IRIN that some 250 children were being sent out of the capital every month before the 11 September 2001 event, but that increased security at airports worldwide had stemmed the flow considerably - reducing it to about 40 to 60 children successfully delivered to their destinations each month. However, a year later, traffic out of Mogadishu was said to be picking up again with the most resourceful agents opening up different routes. Children are instead being ferried out to midway destinations in South East Asia or previously unexplored countries in the Middle East, with countries only marginally involved in America's "war against terror" most likely to become choice transit points.

Agents in Mogadishu use international carriers, and private airlines operating on a limited regional basis. The tickets are purchased at travel agencies in the country of destination or at a nearby midway point, such as Dubai and Amman. Smugglers say they always use cash.

Prices have doubled since 11 September 2001, with the average transfer up to $7,000 from $3,500, according to research by IRIN in Mogadishu and Hargeysa. Agents have also shied away from smuggling the older teenagers, and tend to limit themselves to transporting no more than two children from the same family. One agent told IRIN that it now cost $10,000 to smuggle older children abroad. With the odds of success slimmer and the cost significantly greater, families involved say the traffickers are now required to return one third to half of the sum in the event of failure. However, agents say that many people are willing to try again if they fail the first time, and that the second attempt is nearly always successful. Final destinations are selected on the basis of the country's welfare policy and the presence of relatives.

The repercussions of failure are generally borne by the children themselves, with the agents abandoning them at the first sign of trouble - even if they have not reached their final destination. According to human rights activist Abdullahe Allas, six children were abandoned at the airport at Istanbul by an agent a few days before his interview with IRIN in June 2002. "It took airport officials a long time to establish where the children were from: they had been ordered [by the smuggler] not to say one word."

[Somali mother who failed to reach Sweden]

Smuggling - the paperwork

There are many ways to smuggle children abroad; agents operate successfully because of a wily willingness to constantly change strategies and routes. Agents are also a diverse group of people - men and women, young and old - who may be smuggling on top of a regular business or job, or devoting themselves exclusively to this profitable black market trade. Smugglers are well known in Mogadishu and, although not particularly well liked, appear to command a degree of respect for the work they do. Immigration officials in Europe told IRIN that smugglers live in European cities and travelled frequently to places like Nairobi and Addis Ababa to conduct their lucrative business, but that the security and the legal systems are inadequate to deal with them.

One agent agreed, on the condition of anonymity, to explain to IRIN how he operated from Mogadishu. He said there were five ways of smuggling people into Great Britain, the destination he deals with exclusively. The first, and most common one, involves the use of a legitimate passport issued to a Somali child with British nationality. The agent "borrows" the passport in Britain for about $720 - or 500 pounds sterling - and takes it to Mogadishu. There, he screens children and selects those with vaguely corresponding facial features. Sometimes, boys are passed for girls and vice-versa. "Sometimes what happens is you have a passport for a 15 year old girl, and you have to take out a 13 year old boy," explained one of the staff of an NGO operating in Mogadishu - "the boy has to dress like a girl". Agents confirmed that this has been successful as a strategy.

The second most common method involves filing a claim for a lost passport through the post, but submitting a different - but similar - picture. The request apparently takes only a few weeks to process, with no contact ever taking place between immigration officials and the applicants.

The third, and most risky technique works through a racket inside European immigration offices, the agent said. "Virgin" passports are stolen, photographs attached, necessary stamps added, and then sold to the smugglers. The passports are genuine documents, but the identities they eventually acquire have no legitimacy. When they are put through a computer, the passports will betray the false identity. "I had two girls the other day, and they [immigration officials] did a check on the computer and we had to come back," the agent said. He was evasive when pressed on the fate of the girls.

A fourth method is to assume false paternity or maternity of the children, who are then placed on the "parents'" passport. Finally, another method involves manipulating rights regarding unification of families. Agents of both sexes claim the right to be rejoined with false spouses, and then apply for citizenship.

[Mogadishu agent, on smuggling children abroad]