Policy framework for addressing human trafficking through island port vulnerability and maritime border security.
Policy framework for addressing human trafficking through island port vulnerability and maritime border security. Free under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — no registration required.
Summary of the paper
"Tourism, Trafficking, and Island Vulnerability" is an ISPI policy brief on how tourism-dependent island economies create structural human trafficking risk. It argues that trafficking networks exploit features of these economies, while island law enforcement lacks the specialized capacity to detect and disrupt them at the rate trafficking occurs.
The brief draws on ISPI's direct law enforcement experience in human trafficking investigation and interdiction, and on anti-trafficking policy literature.
What the paper finds
- Three structural conditions. Tourism economies offer a large, anonymous transient population, a cash-intensive hospitality sector where exploitation can be hidden inside legitimate transactions, and geographic isolation that limits victims' access to help.
- Recruitment through hospitality hiring. Traffickers can use fraudulent job offers that look like legitimate hospitality employment until the victim is isolated.
- Ports are key entry points. Port interdiction frameworks designed for high-volume continental entry points do not fit island ports with smaller inspection workforces and different traffic.
- Small agencies are stretched. Agencies with chronic vacancies and limited training budgets struggle to sustain undercover expertise, victim services coordination and multilingual interviewing, which leads to systematic under-detection.
What it recommends
- Develop island-specific anti-trafficking frameworks that address tourism economy risk, port routes and small-agency capacity limits.
- Fund specialized trafficking investigation capacity building for island agencies through DOJ and DHS grants designed for small agency contexts.
- Develop port interdiction frameworks calibrated to island inspection capacity and traffic profiles.
- Establish formal intelligence sharing between federal anti-trafficking agencies and Pacific Island territory law enforcement.
Who it's for
Island law enforcement and port authorities, federal anti-trafficking agencies, victim services providers, hospitality industry security leaders and policymakers in Pacific and Caribbean island jurisdictions.
This research connects to the 39 Small Island Developing States worldwide through the Samoa Pathway and BPOA+30 framework. Every ISPI research product carries a mandatory SIDS global bridge per the ISPI Research Architecture.
Cite as
Pulley, Warren (2026). Tourism, Trafficking, and Island Vulnerability: How Tourism-Dependent Island Economies Create Systematic Human Trafficking Risk (ISPI PB-04). Island Security Policy Institute, Honolulu. https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/pb04-human-trafficking https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23449980
BibTeX
@techreport{ispipb042026,
author = {Pulley, Warren},
title = {Tourism, Trafficking, and Island Vulnerability: How Tourism-Dependent Island Economies Create Systematic Human Trafficking Risk},
institution = {Island Security Policy Institute},
address = {Honolulu, HI},
number = {ISPI PB-04},
year = {2026},
url = {https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/pb04-human-trafficking},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23449980}
}Related analysis
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