UNDERSTANDING
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Human trafficking, also known as modern slavery, involves the unlawful recruitment, transport, or exploitation of people through coercion, force, or deception for purposes such as forced labor or sexual exploitation. This global issue harms individuals and communities, fuels violence and inequality, and undermines social cohesion and justice.
Human Trafficking: A World in Chains
Global Presence
Human trafficking occurs worldwide, moving victims mainly from low- to high-income countries. While 60% of victims are trafficked within their own country, 40% experience cross-border trafficking—18% within the same region, 6% to nearby regions, and 16% to distant regions.
Factors Driving Trafficking
Poverty, conflict, gender inequality, displacement, and climate change create vulnerability. With nearly half the world’s population living on less than $6.85 per day, traffickers prey on people seeking economic survival.
Widespread & Profitable Crime
An estimated 50 million people are victims of human trafficking and modern slavery worldwide. This crime generates around $245 billion each year, making it one of the fastest-growing and most profitable illegal industries. On average, traffickers earn about $10,000 for every person they exploit.
Methods of Exploitation
Traffickers use a range of manipulative tactics, including deception, fraud, and violence, to exploit their victims. They often lure individuals with false promises of legitimate employment, a better quality of life, educational opportunities, or even romantic relationships and marriage. Once trust is gained, traffickers exert control through threats, physical abuse, or debt bondage.
Who Are the Traffickers?
Victims are often lured by someone they know and trust, making the deception even more effective. Weak laws, poor enforcement, and corruption allow traffickers to operate with little risk.
Women & Children Most Affected
Women and girls make up most victims, trafficked for sexual exploitation. Male victims are also increasing, mostly for forced labor. Child trafficking has tripled in 15 years to 35% of all cases.
What you need to know
Human trafficking is a complex and deeply harmful crime that affects millions of people worldwide. Below are some of the most frequently asked questions to help better understand what human trafficking is, how it happens, and what can be done to prevent it.
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 the other questions for more.
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.
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.
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.
- Debt bondage/ bonded labour. World’s most widespread form of slavery. People trapped in poverty borrow money and are forced to work to repay 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.
- 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.
Some key red flags that could signal someone is in a potential trafficking situation that should be reported:
- Living with employer
- 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
- Forced labour. Any work people are forced to do against their will
- Child slavery. It can include child trafficking, child soldiers, child marriage and child domestic slavery
- Producing or distributing child pornography
- Child labour and/or child begging.
- Forced and early marriage.
- Kidnapping. An estimated 8 million children are reported missing globally each year.
- Migrant smuggling. According to UNODC, at least 2.5 million migrants were smuggled in 2016, generating an estimated $5.5 to $7 billion for smugglers.
- Organ trafficking. It generates nearly $1.7 billion annually