Human Trafficking: A Brief Overview

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 Written by Adam W. Marshall, Esq.


Human trafficking is a worldwide scourge whose trail of abused and exploited women, men and children grows every year. Although a global issue, one need not look outside the United States for examples of this horrific practice. Weekly, headlines detail instances of trafficking in this country (these stories were reported during one week in September 2019):
  • A couple was arrested in Pineville, North Carolina, accused of forcing a woman to engage in sex acts with strangers in exchange for money and then beating the woman and her two children when she did not comply with the couple’s demands.
  • In Ohio, 104 people were arrested in a massive human trafficking and internet sex sting.
  • A woman was held against her will and forced to engage in sex acts for money in Ann Arundel County, Maryland, resulting in the arrest of two men.
  • A man was convicted of aggravated human trafficking for forced sexual exploitation, aggravated kidnapping, rape, forcible sodomy, aggravated exploitation of prostitution and tampering with a witness and awaits sentencing in Salt Lake City, Utah.
  • A 15-year-old girl who was brought into the United States illegally from Guatemala and forced to work at a restaurant in order to pay a $10,000 debt was rescued from her captor by authorities in Tarrant County, Texas.

In 2018 alone, there were more than 28,000 calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline in the United States, resulting in the identification of more than 10,000 cases of human trafficking (cases are defined as situations of human trafficking, which may involve more than one victim). Across the world, there were approximately 40.3 million modern slaves, with approximately 25 million of those forced into labor and sex trafficking.

Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as “the recruitment, transport, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation.”

There are three core elements to the UNODC definition of trafficking:1) the action of trafficking (recruitment, transport, transfer, harboring or receipt); 2) the means of trafficking (threat or use of force, deception, coercion, abuse of power or position of vulnerability); and 3) the purpose of trafficking (always exploitation).

It is important not to equate human trafficking with migrant smuggling. According to UNODC, trafficking is different from migrant smuggling in the following important ways: 1) smuggling involves consent of the smuggled; trafficking victims have not consented, or if there is initial consent, it has been negated by subsequent coercion, deception or abuse; 2) the migrant’s arrival at his or her destination ends the smuggling; the trafficking victim continues to be exploited once the destination is reached; 3) smuggling is transnational; a trafficking victim’s ordeal may be confined to one country or state; and 4) the profits of smuggling are derived from the actual transportation of the migrant; in trafficking cases, the profits are generated by the exploitation of the trafficking victim.

"In North America, 71% of those trafficked were victims of sexual exploitation."

Human trafficking reaches all corners of the globe and involves multiple forms of exploitation. According to 2016 figures reported in the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2018 by UNODC:

  • The gender breakdown of victims of trafficking reveals, perhaps not surprisingly, that women and girls are much more likely to become victims of human trafficking:
  • 49% were adult women;
  • 23% were girls;
  • 21% were adult men;
  • 7% were boys.

"It is clear from these numbers that human trafficking affects every populated  region of the planet and disproportionately endangers the lives and wellbeing of women and girls."

There are differences when the numbers are broken down further among regions. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, children comprised 55% of all trafficking victims; in Central America and the Caribbean, girls alone made up 55% of trafficked individuals; in South America, 82% of trafficking victims were female.

  • The specific forms of exploitation forced upon victims involve instances of inhumanity from which victims may never recover:
  • Trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation was the most common form of exploitation of trafficking victims — 59% of all trafficking victims;
  • 34% of trafficking victims were trafficked for forced labor;
  • 7% were trafficked for other purposes, including exploitative child begging and forced organ removal.

Again, breaking the numbers down regionally reveals some disturbing realities. In parts of Europe, the proportion of victims trafficked for sexual exploitation was even greater than the overall figure (66% of all trafficking victims in Western and Southern Europe and a full 70% in Central and South-Eastern Europe), while in parts of Africa, forced labor made up a larger percentage than in the rest of the world (63% in sub-Saharan Africa and 55% in North Africa were trafficked for forced labor). In North America, 71% of those trafficked were victims of sexual exploitation.

It is clear from these numbers that human trafficking affects every populated region of the planet and disproportionately endangers the lives and wellbeing of women and girls. Footage Foundation strives to reach victims of gender-based and other violence, including victims of trafficking, to provide spaces to share their stories with each other and the wider world. Storytelling provides these trafficked women and girls an opportunity to experience compassion and human connection, which in turn allows a process of transformation to empower them to imagine and create new lives for themselves.

The statistics for this article were taken from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2018 

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