“The Octopus”: The Human Trafficking and Terror Nexus of The PKK

30.06.2022 | Haydar KARAMAN

A combination of events over the last decade triggered the largest wave of migration ever seen in and around Türkiye. Criminal networks have played a major role to smuggle the majority of people because of its profitability. Due to their financial needs, terror organizations such as the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê / Kurdistan Workers Party) also are took up business in human trafficking and smuggling. The PKK terrorist organization also takes part in human trafficking and migrant smuggling crimes for various purposes, directly committing these crimes or creating relations with other criminal groups for this purpose. While the PKK terrorist group is involved in human trafficking, it also uses immigrants and its militants to rebuild its political-militarist activities outside of Türkiye. This demonstrates the importance of people smuggling and trafficking in the organization's campaign. As a result, it's critical to shed light on the link between human smuggling and trafficking, criminality, and terrorism, which has received little attention to date. The article's main goal is to make this connection more visible. To make this nexus clear, the article will begin with an examination of the link between organized crime and terrorism. The PKK terrorist organization, as well as the people smuggling and trafficking network, will be investigated using a deductive manner.

Karaman, H. (2022). “The Octopus”: The Human Trafficking and Terror Nexus of the PKK. Journal of Terrorism and Radicalization Studies, 1(2), pp.348-366, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.29228/trad.12