(iPoster) How Terrain and Infrastructure Shape Human Trafficking Flows

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Emerging Issues in US State Politics & Genocide, Trafficking, and Climate Change: Quest for Justice
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Genocide, Trafficking, and Climate Change: Quest for Justice

Abstract

While scholars have made progress understanding trafficking victims’ experiences and estimating flows, less attention has been paid to how subnational factors shape governments' capacity to prevent transnational human trafficking. This paper explores how terrain and border infrastructure affect trafficking flows between countries. We posit that terrain ruggedness facilitates trafficking through two mechanisms: it increases the costs of state surveillance and enforcement and it provides alternative crossing points beyond official checkpoints where traffickers can evade detection. Border infrastructure investments (e.g., inspection stations, physical barriers, and personnel) can partially offset these geographic vulnerabilities by enhancing state legibility in peripheral regions and channeling movement through monitored locations. However, the effects of infrastructure are conditional. Where corruption enables collusion at official crossings, enforcement may displace rather than reduce trafficking flows. Furthermore, while infrastructure may improve interdiction capacity, it can simultaneously undermine victim protection when trafficking victims are misidentified as irregular migrants. We test these arguments using cross-national time series data on trafficking flows and border characteristics. The paper contributes to emerging scholarship on border orientation and state capacity, demonstrating that geographic factors condition the effectiveness of infrastructure investments, while revealing potential trade-offs between enforcement and protection that complicate anti-trafficking policy.

Authors

• Richard W. Frank, Australian National University

• Sam R. Bell, University at Buffalo, SUNY