Human smuggling and human trafficking. A normative and criminological outline

Abstract

Human smuggling and human trafficking are, from a normative point of view, strictly separated but frequently, at a criminological level, they overlap in a tangled-up situation in which it is not easy to separate them. This gap could have serious consequences in the fight against the criminal phenomena. In this brief contribution, I will try to show the extent of this gap and its consequences. Firstly, I will focus on the normative approach on HS and HT. Secondly, I will give a brief criminal outline of the two phenomena. Finally, I will try to underline the inadequacy of the dominating normative point of view.