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Domestic and Transnational Organised Crime in the Pacific in the Wake of COVID-19

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[ by Jose Sousa-Santos ]

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a vulnerable landscape in the Pacific islands which transnational criminal organisations and local crime actors have been quick to capitalise on. As economies falter, criminal actors are seeking to take advantage of the vacuum with significant implications for human security. 

The closure of borders and the global restriction on travel has devastated Pacific island economies – both formal and informal – which are heavily reliant on tourism and related industries as well as remittances from abroad. For example, ADB project GDP growth could drop by as much as 15 per cent this year.

Unemployment figures are likely to be staggering as well, as close to 40 per cent of the informal workforce is dependent on tourism. Remittances are estimated to fall by 13 per cent – in the case of Tonga personnel remittances are expected to contract by 40.7 per cent. Fiji has responded by handing down a $390 million stimulus package as the centrepiece of its 2020-21 budget. The economic fallout, however, is already impacting villages and communities and urban areas across all levels of society. For criminal syndicates this presents an opportunity. 

One of the major features of the Pacific security environment – increasingly visible over the last five years – is the rising sophistication, range and number of transnational and local organised crime actors operating within the region. This has led to the growth of illicit shadow economies and power structures which have responded to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic by adapting with the aim to benefit from it. Moreover, there is a blurred line between licit industries and illicit activities such as human trafficking in industries like logging, mining and fishing.

In Pacific societies it is common practice for there to be one or two employed members of an extended family structure on which the family relies for financial support. The high level of job losses due to the shutdown of businesses reliant on tourism compounded with the loss of remittances, has created a demographic that is vulnerable to exploitation by criminal entities. 

In a region already experiencing a youth bulge , anecdotal evidence suggests that young people are being actively recruited by both local and international criminal syndicates. The benefit of acquiring members who have no criminal history or background is of great value to criminal groups. Once compromised, these new recruits are the perfect assets. Their lack of a criminal background means they are able to operate under the radar of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

These new recruits are therefore well placed to be employed by and infiltrate government, law enforcement, defence and other key agencies of interest to criminal organisations. This creates a new dynamic which has the capability to circumvent strategies in place to address and mitigate the threat posed by the infiltration of key agencies by criminal networks. 

Women previously employed in the tourism and related sectors and who now find themselves in financial distress are increasingly vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Recent interviews with law enforcement and civil society organisations reveal that the numbers of sex workers have risen in urban areas. Anecdotal evidence indicates that women and girls are also being targeted by crime groups who view them as potential source of revenue. Reports of a rise in human trafficking of young girls and women from the villages into the cities have been confirmed by sources in law enforcement and reflect global concerns and trends. 

Lured by promises of employment and the ability to send remittances back to their families in their villages, women and girls are easy targets for human trafficking. Current evidence only points to these women being trafficked domestically, however, the risk of transnational criminal syndicates attempting to traffic these young women internationally via maritime routes is a real danger. Of deep concern is the potential rise in child sex tourism. Despite efforts to stop sex tourists at Australian and New Zealand borders, lessons from conflict and disaster zones tells us that it is highly likely we will see an increase in sex tourism once international borders re-open. 

Criminal actors profiteering from vulnerability is not new. It is, however, being compounded and facilitated by the challenges posed to the Pacific region by Covid-19 and the pressures being placed on government agencies tasked with responding to both the pandemic and existing criminal activities. Agencies are already stretched by the Pacific’s geographic realities, its extensive and porous jurisdictional boundaries, and differences in governance and heterogeneity in law enforcement capacity. Pandemic profiteering will only add to a region under criminal duress as we are already seeing elsewhere. 

In communities and states that do not have the resources to prevent and mitigate the security and societal impacts of illicit activities such as drug and human trafficking, organised crime syndicates can capitalise on the opportunities posed by the COVID-19 pandemic to further entrench themselves in the region and strengthen their position. This will lead to a greater climate of significant regional insecurity, impacting all layers of Pacific society. 

The increase in transnational criminal activities in the Pacific region – specifically drug trafficking – reflects that the region has become progressively valuable to Asian and Latin American transnational crime syndicates as both a transit route onwards to more lucrative markets, and, importantly, as a destination as indigenous and regional organised crime groups take root. The negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Pacific countries’ economies has further exacerbated this by creating a multi-layered landscape of opportunity for local, regional and trans-national criminal entities. The Pacific Islands Forum Boe Declaration on Regional Security (to which Australia and New Zealand are signatories) identifies transnational crime as one of four primary challenges in the Pacific region alongside human security.

It serves as a galvanising force to enhance cooperation, information and intelligence sharing, and pursue the ratification of international conventions such as the Palermo Convention. A key part to its success will be the strengthening of national capacities; building greater linkages between Pacific law enforcement and other relevant agencies; and building the necessary supporting systems within the health, education and social service sectors to support communities and individuals. 

Unless concrete efforts are made to address this threat, it will impact governance and weaken traditional power structures, and further enable corruption and the infiltration of law enforcement, customs and defence as well as other sectors. At the human-level, the impact has the potential to be devastating.

It is in these areas where Australia and New Zealand can and should move swiftly to support the Pacific region. To delay or rely on a business-as-usual approach enables criminal syndicates both indigenous and transnational to continue to capitalise on the current landscape of ‘opportunity’ created by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Pacific peoples demonstrate extraordinary resilience in challenging times. Now is no different. However, the pervasive and damaging threat that transnational crime poses to Pacific nations, society and traditional power structures is still to be seen. Partners such as Australia and New Zealand can have a positive impact working alongside traditional mechanisms. However, if resources are not allocated now to address these issues, a post COVID-19 Pacific landscape will be a much more challenging environment in which to address these threats.

Jose Sousa-Santos is a senior associate (Southeast Asia and Pacific regional security) at Victoria University of Wellington,  the managing director of Strategika Group, and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University Cyber Institute.

Surveillance to Limit Spread of COVID-19 Raises Concerns for Privacy of the Australians

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[ by Fan Yang ]

In February 2020, to recover its economy from the coronavirus outbreak, China’s State Council in collaboration with two tech giants, Tencent and Alibaba, launched the ‘health code’ mini-programme on WeChat, a social media platform, and Alipay, a financial platform.

The health code is an automatic built-in function on both platforms, leaving users incapable of choosing whether to install the function or deactivate it. This function is so far only accessible to users based in mainland China.

According to WeChat and Alipay, an assessment is made in accordance with the data drawn from government sectors including healthcare, telecommunication, transportation, migration, and customs, and this informs a person’s health rating. This is used to speculate the likelihood of whether a user poses a contagion risk, based on their travel history, medical information, and whether they have recently contacted someone who is a possible COVID-19 carrier.

This health code is presented as a more complicated version of QR code that is only scannable by authorities in order to protect user’s privacy. For users and business owners, it performs like a digital ‘proximity card’, with which users are permitted to enter a location or travel within or outside a province, based on the information in their code. Mobilities will be restricted for those who fail to install the health code.

To get their health code, users are required to let the government access their basic information on WeChat and register with their national identification number.

On Alipay, health codes are colour-coded green, yellow, or red. With green health codes, users are granted with freedom of movement, whereas yellow and red indicate that one needs to go into mandatory quarantine, either by themselves or in a supervised quarantine facility.

Concerns have been expressed in relation to the lack of transparency, as the health code is a computer system, and whether future collaboration with the social credit system, which is designed to give the government control based on social sorting and classification, restricting certain groups of people according to their race, ethnicity, or their history of political activism.

Health code functions on Alipay and WeChat are also reported to send users incorrect information: some users were instructed to conduct isolation without knowing why, and some users have even received different instructions from the two platforms.

Drawing experience from Singapore’s TraceTogether, Australia’s coronavirus contact tracing app emerged out of controversy in April. To make sure that the application functions properly, users are required to consent to carry the phone with them when they leave home and keep the application functioning with Bluetooth activated.

The idea of the government potentially monitoring every aspect of life has drawn much suspicion. Australians started questioning: Should I give up privacy for freedom this time? How much freedom are we ready to give up in fighting an existential threat, be it a virus, terrorism, or crime more generally? And during a national crisis, is privacy still personal property?

Unlike China’s health code, downloading COVIDSafe is entirely voluntary for Australians. However, these personal choices have also been turned into a subject of moral judgement, in particular on social media. Many argue that going out without installing COVIDSafe is putting the lives of others at risk.

The public is under many layers of surveillance networks administered by technological corporates and national governments. It is certainly paradoxical to see so many express concerns about coronavirus tracking apps on Facebook, a platform with a poor history on privacy protections. However, these concerns are fair and real. Sharing personal data with the authorities further erodes the thin line between individuals and the state, and between the private and the public.

A  variety of surveillance technologies are being implemented across countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, with the aim of controlling the virus. Despite their limited utility during the lockdown, they could prove to be much more appealing when restrictions are gradually lifted.

Surveillance is two-sided especially during this challenging time, and perhaps relaxing personal privacy rules can be justifiable at this stage.

The benefits of correct identification, screening, checking, appropriate classification, and other tasks associated with monitoring and surveillance must be acknowledged, despite the cost to privacy they represent.

Risks and dangers are always manifested in large-scale systems and power does corrupt – or, at least, skews the vision of – those who wield it. The pandemic has raised the serious question of how much faith Australians have in their government, especially in processing data ethically and securely, ones which will continue to be significant long after the pandemic is over.

Fan Yang is a PhD candidate at School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University. She researches the effects of large-scale international social media platforms in terms of cross-jurisdictional tensions and expectations, and their cross-border effects on political activity and identity. Her research also includes the globalisation of non-Western technologies and social media platforms, smart cities and surveillance and information privacy.

A Bill that would Leave Australia in Violation of International Law

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[ by Dr Sangeetha Pillai ]

Currently, there is a Bill before federal Parliament which seeks to make it easier for the Minister for Home Affairs to strip Australians of their citizenship on national security grounds.

The Bill has come under fire from the Human Rights Commission, the Law Council, and a number of experts on grounds that it would render people stateless – a breach of international law.

A person is stateless if they are not considered a national or citizen by any country.

Sometimes this happens where particular ethnic, cultural or religious groups within a country are intentionally excluded from the people recognised as nationals, such as the Rohingya in Myanmar.

But statelessness can also occur in other, often unintentional, ways.

A person may be eligible for citizenship in a country, but unable to access registration processes. A person who has citizenship may move abroad or get married, and in doing so lose their citizenship of origin, without acquiring new citizenship. Because citizenship is often passed from one generation to the next, the children of stateless people also face a higher risk of statelessness.

There are also several consequences that all stateless people face.

Stateless people cannot freely access basic rights that most of us take for granted. A stateless person, for example, will generally lack a passport, and will not be able to travel freely. Typically, they will be unable to access political processes within the country they live in, and may have difficulty accessing public services that are associated with citizenship – welfare, healthcare, and education to name only a few.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that statelessness is a problem that is entirely solvable, with adequate political will.

There are two international treaties that seek to address statelessness: the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Australia has signed up to both conventions. In doing so, it has committed to take specific steps to reduce statelessness. These include granting citizenship to people born in Australia who would otherwise be stateless, and refraining from depriving a person of their Australian citizenship where this would render them stateless.

To date, Australian citizenship law has been drafted in a way that broadly reflects an intention to uphold these commitments. Despite this, risks of statelessness remain in some circumstances.

To give an example, people born in Australia are eligible for Australian citizenship on grounds of statelessness if they have never held citizenship of a foreign country and are not entitled to foreign citizenship.

While this provides recourse for many Australian-born people who would otherwise be stateless, others remain vulnerable.

For instance, a couple with Syrian citizenship may arrive in Australia fleeing persecution in Syria, and may have a child after arrival. This child may have an entitlement to Syrian citizenship by descent, but lack any safe way of availing Syrian citizenship. That would put them out of the running for Australian citizenship on statelessness grounds, but would leave them effectively stateless, with no practical access to foreign citizenship.

Conversely, children born to non-citizens in immigration detention with no entitlement to foreign citizenship are entitled to apply for Australian citizenship, but have no practical way in which to do so.

Similar issues arise under Australia’s citizenship-stripping laws. In their current form, these laws allow dual citizens to be stripped of their Australian citizenship on particular national security grounds. In order to be stripped of their Australian citizenship under the current law, a person must hold foreign citizenship.

When the laws were introduced in 2015, a proposal to extend revocation to certain sole Australian citizens was met with a Cabinet revolt, on grounds that it would render people stateless.

But the recent use of these laws against Islamic State recruiter Neil Prakash shows that risks of effective statelessness can nonetheless arise in practice.

Prakash was born in Melbourne to a Fijian father. He was stripped of his citizenship by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton after the Department of Home Affairs formed the view that he was a Fijian citizen.

The problem is, the Department did not consult Fijian authorities before forming this view, and Fiji says Prakash is not, and has never been a citizen.

Prakash, at least for the moment, is effectively stateless. He is currently in Turkey, facing terrorism charges without bail, with no country recognising him as a citizen at present.

As it stands, though his circumstances make it difficult, Prakash could seek judicial review of Dutton’s decision.

He could argue that he was a sole Australia citizen and therefore not eligible for citizenship deprivation. A court would then examine whether or not he actually is a Fijian citizen. If he is not, Dutton’s decision to strip Prakash of his citizenship would be found invalid, and Prakash’s Australian citizenship would be restored.

The Bill currently before Parliament goes a good deal further. If passed, it would allow the Minister to revoke a person’s Australian citizenship if the Minister believes that they hold foreign citizenship, even if this belief ultimately turns out to be incorrect.

In situations like Prakash’s, this would cut off the option of resolution through judicial review, because whether or not the person actually holds dual citizenship would be irrelevant to the validity of a ministerial decision to revoke citizenship.

It would leave people stripped of their citizenship in an ongoing state of uncertainty, and likely in indefinite immigration detention. In doing so, it would place Australia in stark violation of its international law obligations.

Dr Sangeetha Pillai is a constitutional lawyer and a Senior Research Associate at the Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW.