Human Trafficking Worldwide Facts
Slavery was, in a very real sense, the first international human rights issue to come to the fore. It led to the adoption of the first human rights laws and to the creation of the first human rights non-governmental organization. And yet despite the efforts of the international community to combat this abhorrent practice, it is still widely prevalent in all its insidious forms, old and new. The list is painfully long and includes traditional chattel slavery; bonded labor; serfdom; and forced labor, including of children, women and migrants, and often for the purpose of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and ritualistic and religious reasons....
Kofi Annan
- Human trafficking is an illegal global criminal activity and statistics collected is an approximation, not a clear reflection of the immensity of the issue.
- An estimated 27 million people are enslaved around the world today – that’s approximately the population of Mali and Niger combined.
- According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns (2006), 161 countries have been affected by human trafficking as receiving, sending and transit destinations. No continent or country is immune.
- According to U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report (2007), 800,000 people are victims of trans-border trafficking yearly. This is a little less than the population of Swaziland.
- Human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar business (ILO, A global alliance against forced labor: 2005) and it is the fastest growing organized criminal activity.
- Human trafficking shares second place with arms dealing in organized criminal activity. Drug trafficking is first. Human trafficking is becoming more interlinked with drug trafficking and criminal networks amass high profits with low risks in the flesh trade.
- Women and children constitute 80% of trafficking victims globally (U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report: 2007) due to their heightened vulnerability caused by gender discrimination, lower rates of education and economic empowerment.
- According to International Labour Organization, Forced Labour Statistics Factsheet (2007), 43% of human trafficking victims are used for commercial sexual exploitation, of whom 98% are women and girls and 2.45 million people are estimated to be in conditions of forced labour as a result of trafficking. This number is larger than the population of Namibia.
- According to UNICEF, UK Child Trafficking Information Sheet (2003), 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, approximately the same as the population of the Republic of Mauritius.
