Human trafficking is a global problem and one of the world's most shameful crimes, affecting the lives of millions of people around the world and robbing them of their dignity.
Traffickers deceive women, men and children from all corners of the world and force them into exploitative situations every day.
While the best-known form of human trafficking is for the purpose of sexual exploitation, hundreds of thousands of victims are trafficked for the purposes of forced labour, domestic servitude, child begging or the removal of their organs. The exploitation of human beings can be highly lucrative for organized criminal groups. Human traffickers regard people as commodities; items that can be exploited and traded for profit. In Europe, most convicted traffickers are male, though female offenders are overrepresented when compared to other crimes, as some gangs consider women to be more effective in entrapping victims by gaining their trust.
In , ILO estimated that, globally, there are around 2. Victims' passports are often seized by the traffickers, leaving them with no form of identification. In cases where they have been trafficked between countries, victims often have little or no knowledge of the local language. Nearly every country in the world is affected by human trafficking, as a point of origin, transit or destination, and victims from at least countries have been reported to have been exploited in States.
For example, victims from East Asia have been identified in more than 20 countries throughout the world, including in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. The most common form of human trafficking detected by national authorities is trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. In , this form accounted for an estimated 79 per cent of all cases globally. The remaining 21 per cent of victims were thought to be trafficked for the purpose of forced labour or other forms of exploitation.
