As global conflicts and migration accelerate, more and more people are falling victim to human trafficking by the organized crime groups that force them to work or subject them to sexual abuse. Defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, or receipt of people by force, fraud, or deception, human trafficking is one of the most profitable crimes enabling organized criminal groups to earn US$150 billion annually, inflicting losses on many economies. The latest report by the US-based think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), “Ending Human Trafficking in the Twenty-First Century”, shows the extent of the problem.
The most common forms of crime are labor trafficking, sex trafficking, forced marriage, or trafficking people to remove and sell their organs. The majority of people are exploited in their own country or trafficked within the region where their country is located. The highest number of cases was found to be in Europe and North America with most of the victims being girls and women trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced labor, or forced marriage as presented in the graph below.
Human trafficking is mostly run by organized international criminal groups although there are also certain countries that support these practices with their policies. In 2020, the US State Department listed these as Afghanistan, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, North Korea, Russia, South Sudan, and Turkmenistan. Unfortunately, human trafficking still goes mainly unpunished and in 2019 there were only 11,841 prosecutions worldwide.
When it comes to labor trafficking, this involves all ages and genders, including 4 million children who are trafficked to forcibly do domestic work, work in agriculture, in textiles, or in factories, very often in dangerous conditions. The report also found that migrants are especially susceptible to becoming victims of forced labor. Almost 25% of victims are migrants who are very often are afraid to report the abuse, fearing deportation to their country of origin.
In terms of sex trafficking, it is mainly women and girls who are the victims, although men and boys are sexually exploited too. The report also found that the rates of online sexual exploitation are on the rise with Philippines online child exploitation cases tripling between 2014 and 2017
According to the publication, as many as 15.4 million people worldwide live in forced marriages, and women and girls are much more often victims of this than boys and men. Child marriage occurs when a person under 18 is forced to marry. This happens mostly in developing countries within impoverished communities where parents see the early marriage of their children as a way to secure their wellbeing. Two regions where child marriages occur more often than in other locations are sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. One in three child brides worldwide lives in India where about 27% of girls are married under the age of 18.
In relation to trafficking people for the removal and sale of their organs, migrants are the most vulnerable. The report found that in recent years there have been many cases when African migrants were forced to donate their organs in exchange for a passage to Europe.
CFR analysts point out that although there are special provisions and acts preventing human trafficking, the implementation of these acts and international policy against human trafficking have failed to stop it. They have prepared a set of recommendations to curb the problem, amongst them:
- Strengthening the humanitarian community response capabilities
- Extension of labor rights protection
- Raising funds for operations preventing human trafficking
- Strengthening intelligence efforts to better prevent human trafficking
- Improve data on trafficking and share this with other actors dealing with the problem
- Ban the trade of products made as a result of forced labor
- Raise the level of prosecutions for trafficking
- Improve cyber fighting against this crime
