Human Trafficking: Facts & Statistics

US State Department 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report
(http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/47255.pdf)

Annually, at least 600,000 - 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked across borders worldwide, including 14,500 - 17,500 persons into the United States.

Subsections:

Annually, at least 600,000 - 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked across borders worldwide, including 14,500 - 17,500 persons into the United States.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) Ñ the United Nations (UN) agency charged with addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues Ñ estimates that there are 12.3 million people enslaved in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, sexual servitude, and involuntary servitude at any given time.

Of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people trafficked across international borders annually, 80 percent of victims are female, and up to 50 percent are children. Hundreds of thousands of these women and children are used in prostitution each year.

The health risks and consequences include sexually transmitted diseases, pelvic inflammatory disease, hepatitis, tuberculosis and other communicable diseases; unwanted pregnancy, forced abortion, and abortion-related complications; rape and other physical assault; a host of mental and emotional health problems including nightmares, insomnia, and suicidal tendencies; alcohol and drug abuse and addiction; and even suicide and murder.

Globally, women in prostitution and those who have been trafficked for prostitution have a high prevalence of HIV another STDs. (http://www.state.gov/g/tip/c11789.htm)

"Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person by means of the threat or use of force or other means of coercion, or by abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or by the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. (U.S. State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, February 2004)

An estimated 75 percent of all victims of human trafficking are trafficked for sexual exploitation Ñ Collecting Data on Human Trafficking, Kristiina Kangaspunta, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

International Organization for Migration (2004)
www.humantrafficking.org

REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF STUDIES ON TRAFFICKING

Middle East: 1%
Asia-Pacific: 35%
Africa: 13%
Americas: 7%
Europe: 44%

Source: "Human trafficking bibliography", International Organization for Migration, Geneva.

United Nations: Office on Drugs and Crime
Trafficking in Human Beings (2005)

It is believed to be growing fastest in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

A recent CIA report estimated that between 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are brought to the United States every year under false pretenses and are forced to work as prostitutes, abused labourers or servants.

UNICEF estimates that more than 200,000 children are enslaved by cross-border smuggling in West and Central Africa. The children are often "sold" by unsuspecting parents who believe their children are going to be looked after, learn a trade or be educated.

Additionally, the spread of HIV/AIDS among victims trafficked into prostitution makes victim support and repatriation a public health issue.

Trafficking is fostered, in part, by social and economic disparities that create a supply of victims seeking to migrate and a demand for sexual and other services that provide the economic impetus for trafficking.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Administration for Children and Families
The Campaign to Rescue and Restore Victims of Human Trafficking
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines "Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons" as:

• Sex Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act , in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person forced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years; or


• Labor Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.

Victims are generally trafficked into the U.S. from Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe.

Trafficking is not smuggling.

Human Trafficking Vs. Migrant Smuggling
Human Trafficking	Migrant Smuggling
Victims either do not consent to their situations, or if they initially consent, that consent is rendered meaningless by the actions of the traffickers. Ongoing exploitation of victims to generate illicit profits for the traffickers. Trafficking need not entail the physical movement of a person (but must entail the exploitation of the person for labor or commercial sex)	Migrant smuggling includes those who consent to being smuggled. Smuggling is a breach of the integrity of a nation's borders. Smuggling is always transnational.