Across Africa, trafficking is on the rise. Boko Haram's kidnapping and sale of some of the 276 Chibok schoolgirls into slavery, Guinea-Bissau regressing into a "narco state," and rebels loyal to the Mozambican National Resistance using poaching to sustain their fledgling movement are several examples in recent memory. These crimes are not isolated incidents. Rather, they all concern conflict, security, and governance and unite under a single banner: human, drug, and wildlife trafficking that is thriving off--and promoting--instability in Africa.
A new Atlantic Council report draws attention to illicit trafficking's lofty profits. They make up part of the $50 billion--just slightly over Tanzania's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016--that African governments lose in illicit financial flows per year. Trafficking far outpaces the earning potential of local security forces and law enforcement, sowing the seeds of corruption and undermining efforts to eliminate bribery and illicit trading. The same report notes that both terrorist groups and organized crime syndicates are accruing substantial profit from trafficking and using those profits to spoil peace efforts and perpetuate insecurity in their respective regions.
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