ABSTRACT
This chapter will focus on the underlying causes of human smuggling. A lot of work has already been done on people’s reasons for migrating, but when it comes to irregular migration and human smuggling, overemphasised is the side of the receiving country and the consequences of migration, rather than its causes. However, individual stories show how a knowledge of the circumstances prompting people to leave everything behind is essential in understanding the decisions migrants make and the situations they end up in. To better understand the context in which our respondents made their decision to migrate, this chapter presents a brief description of the histories and political situations of the countries where they originated. This chapter asks: what structural conditions in the Horn of Africa, in Iraq, and in the former Soviet Union make people decide to leave? For this description, I rely on information provided by the respondents themselves, as well as on secondary literature. For more in-depth background knowledge on the selected countries, references are made in the text to relevant literature. Towards the chapter’s conclusion more attention is devoted to individual choices and different forms of capital that shape migrants’ decision-making processes.
