Column Actions

The focus of this indicator is on the action taken by national authorities to identify trafficking flows and points of diversion, which are identified as pre-conditions for an effective fight against illicit flows of firearms.

This indicator measures the proportion of seized, found or surrendered arms whose illicit origin or context has been traced or established by a competent authority in line with international instruments. The problem of arms trafficking is multidimensional. Firearms are manufactured and traded both licitly and illicitly thus making the identification and tracing of illegally manufactured and trafficked firearms very complex. Further complicating matters, most firearms are produced legally and then diverted into the illicit market. Notably, illicit arms are present in most forms of violent crimes and increase the power of organized criminal groups.

Ministry of National Security, Belize Police Department

Ministry of National Security, Belize Police Department

Annual

Percentage (%)

While Target 16.4 aims at significantly reducing illicit arms flows, directly measuring these types of flows is extremely difficult due to the underground nature of illicit arms trafficking. Therefore, the indicator does not aim at measuring these flows, but the efficiency with which the international community combats the phenomenon of illicit arms trafficking.

Arms: arms refer to ‘small arms and light weapons’, defined as any portable lethal weapon that expels or launches, is designed to expel or launch, or may be readily converted to expel or launch a shot, bullet or projectile by the action of an explosive.

Seized: arms that have been physically apprehended during the reported period by a competent authority, whether temporarily or not, in relation to a suspected criminal offence or administrative violation related to these arms.

Found: arms apprehended by authorities that are not linked to an intentional or planned investigation or inspection, neither attributable to any apparent holder or owner, regardless of whether the items were reported lost or stolen.

Surrendered: arms willingly handed over to authorities that are not linked to a planned investigation or inspection. The surrender may occur as a personal initiative of a citizen in the context of a voluntary surrender campaign and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration processes, inter alia.

Illicit Origin: Earliest point in time in the life of an arm where it was of an illicit nature. In order to establish the illicit origin, it is necessary to identify the point of diversion of the arm and the circumstances around it.

Point of diversion: the point in space and time and/or circumstances when arms left the licit circuit and entered the illicit one. If identified through tracing, the last legal record needs to be found. For arms illicitly manufactured, the point of diversion is the manufacture itself.

Last legal record: last recorded information available about the item, its status (deactivated, stolen, lost, seized, found, surrendered, sent for destruction, confiscated, in transit, etc.) and its legal end-user.  The identification of the last legal record may require the initiation of several individual tracing requests.

Tracing: the systematic tracking of weapons and, where possible, their parts and components, and ammunition, at the national and/or international level for the purpose of assisting the competent authorities of States parties in detecting, investigating and analysing illicit manufacturing and illicit trafficking.

Illicit origin established by a competent authority in line with international instruments: illicit origin established through means other than tracing, e.g. through intelligence. In the case of arms that are not traceable, this is the only mean to establishing the illicit origin.

is by arms seized, arms found, and arms surrendered.

is by different “levels of tracing” in cases where tracing was not successful. For example, cases where tracing is still pending or there was not enough information to establish the point of

The indicator is calculated as a proportion. The denominator of the proportion is the total number of arms seized, found and surrendered. The numerator will include all those arms for which the point of diversion was established / identified, either through tracing or by a competent authority (e.g. through intelligence).

The indicator is used to help the Ministry of National Security reduce manufacturing and trafficking of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, and falsifying or illicitly obliterating, removing or altering the markings on firearms.

There are certain limitations to the methodology used in the calculation of indicator 16.4.2:

• The pilot study and consultations with Member States revealed that countries could not properly provide information on the circumstances of illicit manufacture or altered / erased markings for arms nor uniquely identifiable. Therefore, information on the establishment of the illicit origin for these arms is not available.
• The values for indicator 16.4.2 may be affected by whether the country has a significant proportion of apprehended arms that are traceable, which is usually a consequence of the context of illicit arms trafficking in the country and is not related to its Law Enforcement efforts.
• The process of tracing firearms can be notably long, especially if several requests are involved. Therefore, the information on tracing results provided on the questionnaire for the reference year may be incomplete. While the fact that countries are requested to review the figures reported during the previous data collection cycle may partially correct for this, there may still be a bias in the calculation.

In addition to indicator 16.4.2 as defined in this document, other non-official indicators may be of assistance when interpreting the reporting values. Information is collected on the number of international tracing requests placed and responded to, and the total number of arms seized, found and surrendered by whether they are uniquely marked or not, the total number of arms that have been marked, recorded or destroyed. In addition, data on the number of individuals in contact with the police, prosecuted and convicted, in relation to illicit trafficking of arms is available. All these indicators could help complete the picture regarding the extent of Law Enforcement activities at the national level to counter illicit trafficking in arms.

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.