From the mid-2000s, Senegal has had an anti-trafficking law to prosecute emigration attempts and activities that relate to facilitating passage out of the country. Implemented following Senegal’s ratification of the Palermo Protocols, this law ushered in a new legal practice of making some forms of movement illegal, or at the very least, suspicious. These activities, both in Senegal and beyond, are often framed around smuggling.
While news headlines and occasional social media posts capture the dramatic nature of these migratory journeys over the Atlantic, with details of tragedies that occur at sea or patrols stopping those allegedly bound for Europe, our research focuses on the legal proceedings that unfold in courtrooms across Senegal’s coastal regions that frequently serve as points of departure. These socio-legal aspects represent a critical dimension of migration governance, which is often out of reach for researchers — often because of the practicalities and costs of fieldwork, regional travel, and case law gathering.
The Perils and Joys of Gathering Case Law
Court data gathering often needs official authorization and ethics approval. We are deeply grateful to the Senegalese Minister of Justice for authorizing our research, and to all the helpful court presidents, clerks, judges, prosecutors, archivists and lawyers who have supported our work. Both formal interviews and more informal chats have been absolutely revelatory for getting into the complexities and nuances of migration control’s judicial ramifications.
The process of data collection has been physically demanding — we have spent days bent over files spanning decades and we sifted through countless files to select migration-related cases. As all of it is paper-based, this work has also meant dealing with photocopiers from before 2000 as court equipment was often in disrepair. Yet the occasional discomfort and time spent has been worth it.
The overwhelming majority of migration cases are processed through the “flagrant délit” procedure (a fast-tracked process), resulting in case files between two to six pages in length that contain variable details on judicial actors, facts, the accused, and outcomes. In our work, we’ve also gathered several criminal law cases that provide richer information, including the accused’s interviews with police, which offers valuable insights into how more complex cases are informed.
Our timeline of cases captures the period from the introduction of Senegal’s 2005 anti-trafficking law through recent developments under the EU Trust Fund for Africa. While each case represents only a brief window into a much larger phenomenon, collectively they help us piece together patterns in the legal side of the story.
Building a Research Database
Our ambition is to contribute to research on the judicial dimensions of migration control, an increasingly important phenomenon across West African states. Courts are now tasked with addressing complex transnational issues, often with limited resources and guidance. We have begun to code our cases from six jurisdictions in Senegal (Ziguinchor, Saint Louis, Mbour, Thies, Fatick and Dakar), with the hope to expand this research to other West African countries in the future.
The database we’re developing is fully anonymized and hand-coded, providing valuable metadata on case outcomes, legal qualifications, and sentencing patterns over time. This resource captures both typical cases and outliers, revealing how migration control is translated into specific legal charges, penalties, and judicial outcomes.
We encourage researchers interested in working with this database to contact us, and to consider a potential visiting stay at the Mobile Center of Excellence of Global Mobility Law.
Migration: A Disproportionate Caseload
One striking realization has been the disproportionate resources these cases consume in certain jurisdictions and time periods. For instance, migration-related cases constituted approximately 25% of daily proceedings during a day of court observation in Saint Louis. As one judge in Mbour explained, for the investigating judges who handle cases considered to be about more complex migration crimes, migration-related cases can represent up to 10% of their annual caseload.
Through our ongoing research, we hope to understand these broader ramifications, as well as how the legal classification of migration offenses has evolved over time —shifting from generic “illegal emigration” charges toward more specific formulations like “migrant smuggling” and “complicity in smuggling”. These shifts reflect changing perceptions of migration within the legal system and highlight the evolving nature of this legal domain.
As our research progresses, we aim to provide insights into how judicial actors navigate these complex waters, balancing legal principles and priorities with the practical realities of migration governance in West Africa.
