FAQ

Some key red flags that could signal someone is in a potential trafficking situation that should be reported:

• Living with employer
• Poor living conditions
• Multiple people in cramped space
• Inability to speak to individual alone
• Answers appear to be scripted and rehearsed
• Employer is holding identity documents
• Signs of physical abuse
• Submissive or fearful
• Unpaid or paid very little
• Under 18 and in prostitution

Modern slavery is a relationship based on exploitation. Although modern slavery is not defined in law, it is used as an umbrella term that focuses attention on commonalities around the exploitation of people for their labour and bodies.

People under modern slavery find themselves unable to willingly refuse or escapes a situation of exploitation due to the use of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power.

Modern slavery covers a set of specific legal concepts, each defined in treaties and documents of the United Nations and the International Labour Organization.

Human Trafficking is the unlawful act of transporting or coercing people in order to benefit from their work or service, typically in the form of forced labour or sexual exploitation. The United Nations defines Human Trafficking as “the recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a person by means of threat, use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, or deception for the purpose of exploitation”.

Although the Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery are used interchangeably, we consider the former to be a form of modern-day slavery. Other forms of exist as well. See next question.

Human trafficking manifests in many forms. Victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation, which takes place on the streets, in brothels, massage centres, hotels or bars, where they – mainly women and girls – often experience extreme violence and abuse. Many more are exploited for forced labour. Some people work long hours in factories, for minimal or no pay, producing clothes, computers or phones. Others work on fields, plantations or fishing boats – often in harsh weather – cultivating corn, rice or wheat, harvesting coffee and cocoa beans or catching fish and seafood.

Around 10% are compelled to engage in illegal activities, such as pickpocketing, bag snatching, begging or drug selling.

Other forms of exploitation include forced marriage, organ removal and domestic servitude.

• Debt bondage/ bonded labour. The world’s most widespread form of slavery. People trapped in poverty borrow money and are forced to work to pay off the debt, losing control over both their employment conditions and the debt
• Descent–based slavery (where people are born into slavery). A very old form of slavery, where people are treated as property, and their “slave” status has been passed down the maternal line.
• Domestic servitude. Domestic work and domestic servitude are not always slavery, and when properly regulated can be an important source of income for many people. However, when someone is working in another person’s home, they may be particularly vulnerable to abuses, exploitation, and slavery, as they might be hidden from sight and lack legal protection.
• Slavery. Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.
• Forced or fraudulent adoption.
• Deceptive recruiting for labour or services. Recruiting someone for labour or service on a false pretence. Once employed, the actual job scenario turns out to be different from what was promised. People might also be recruited for a higher salary but paid quite less. This practice is a form of modern slavery and also includes force, threats, or coercion. When the victim realises that the claims made during recruitment are false and they challenge it, they can also suffer from further threats or coercion. Some victims also stay in the arrangement due to financial or visa concerns.

No one is immune to trafficking. People of all genders, ages, backgrounds and in all regions of the world fall prey to traffickers, who resort to a variety of means to recruit and exploit their victims.

Women and girls make up the majority of victims. They are mainly trafficked for sexual exploitation and are three times more likely to suffer physical or extreme violence than men and boys.

At the same time, the number of detected male victims has increased over the last years. They are mainly trafficked for forced labour. In the past 15 years, the proportion of children among identified victims of trafficking has tripled to 35%, or one third of all victims.

• Forced labour. Any work or services people are forced to do against their will, usually under threat of punishment
• Child slavery. When a child is exploited for someone else’s gain. This can include child trafficking, child soldiers, child marriage and child domestic slavery
• Producing, distributing, or possessing child pornography
• Child labour and/or child begging.
• Forced and early marriage. When someone is married against their will and cannot leave. Most child marriages can be considered slavery
• Kidnapping. An estimated 8 million children are reported missing globally each year.
• Migrant smuggling. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, at least 2.5 million migrants were smuggled in 2016, generating an estimated $5.5 to $7 billion for smugglers.
• Organ trafficking. The illegal organ trade is estimated to generate between $840 million to $1.7 billion annually, with approximately 12,000 illegal transplants performed each year.

While the true scale of human trafficking and modern slavery is an unknown, there are an estimated 49.6 to 50 million victims trapped in modern-day slavery, including

• 27.6 million are exploited for labour or into forced marriages
• Roughly a quarter of all victims of modern slavery are children
• 38% of victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation
• 38% are exploited for forced labour
• 10% are compelled to engage in illegal activities
• Nearly 4 million victims are in forced labour imposed by state authorities
• 71% of trafficking victims around the world are women and girls (47% and 18% respectively)
• 29% are men and boys (28% and 17% respectively)
• 35% children under 18.
• 37% of victims of trafficking in forced marriage are children.
• 21% of victims of sexual exploitation are children.