What is human trafficking?

The United Nations’ Palermo Protocol defines human trafficking as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of 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.” The definition of child trafficking, however, doesn’t include the “means” of exploitation. This is not because means are not present in child trafficking, but the definition recognises that a child cannot give informed consent to their own exploitation.

What this means in practice is that people may be coerced or forced into sexual or criminal exploitation or recruited into jobs through restrictive visas, whose conditions exacerbate vulnerabilities that trap people in exploitation, especially in sectors such as farming, health and social care, constructions, fishing or domestic work. People may also be forced into situations of forced labour by state actors. Some of these forms of exploitation are less visible than others. For example, domestic workers can be recruited to work in private homes only to be trapped, exploited and abused behind closed doors, while others are simply hidden in plain sight. It’s a serious crime and a grotesque abuse of the people it affects,  which is why tackling it is one of our four strategic priorities (including child slavery, climate change and modern slavery, and responsible business.) 
 
People don’t have to be transported across borders for trafficking to take place. Trafficking can take place across international and domestic borders, within communities and even from a room to another within the same home. 

Human trafficking in numbers

• Between 2020 and 2023, an estimated 202,478 people were trafficked 
• 38% were children and 68% were adults 
• 61% of trafficking victims are women and girls and 49% men and boys 
• 36% of trafficking victims were trafficked into sexual exploitation and 42% for forced labour 
• 72% of the convictions for trafficking in persons are for sexual exploitation 

(Estimates by The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime 2024)

How do people get trafficked?

There are many factors that can lead to a person being trafficked. They might have been kidnapped or coerced by someone; they may have been trying to escape abuse or poverty; or they could simply have been trying to improve their lives and support their families. Perpetrators often take advantage of vulnerabilities and gaps in state support and protection to trap people in exploitation. Individuals, including those with disabilities, care-experienced young people, people with experience of the criminal justice system, and individuals with insecure housing, jobs or immigration status are often targeted. 

Debt can be used as a way to entrap people. Debt bondage is a serious issue for many people who are forced to take unimaginable risks to try to escape from poverty or persecution. Individuals may incur debt in their home country and then be trafficked to repay it or take on debt during their journey and be forced into exploitative work either en route or upon arrival in another country. 

When they arrive in their destination country, they may find that the work does not exist, or conditions are completely different from those they had been promised. They become trapped, either because of fear of criminalisation and/or dependency on their traffickers. Their documents may be taken away, and they are forced to work until their debt is paid off and, in most cases, continuing well beyond it.