Human traffincking and migrant smuggling

In Spanish, the term “human trafficking” (trata de personas) is frequently confused with the term “smuggling” (tráfico). This misuse could be explained based on the fact that the early texts that addressed this matter were written in English and labeled the concept as “trafficking in persons” or “human trafficking” which literal translation into Spanish is tráfico, thus this plain translation was employed and both terms were mixed.

Smuggling of Migrants and Human Trafficking are two different phenomena and so, it is pivotal to understand each of them and apply concepts appropriately. This chart enounces some of the main differences: