This year's global campaign for World Day Against Trafficking in Persons urges accelerated action to end child trafficking. Children represent a significant proportion of trafficking victims worldwide, with girls being disproportionately affected.
Additionally, children are twice as likely to face violence during trafficking than adults, according to the UNODC's Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (GLOTIP). Regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean bear a disproportionate burden, with children making up for 60 per cent of detected trafficking victims.
Amid overlapping crises such as armed conflicts, pandemics, economic hardships, and environmental challenges, children are increasingly vulnerable to trafficking. Furthermore, the proliferation of online platforms poses additional risks as children often connect to these sites without adequate safeguards. Traffickers exploit online platforms, social media, and the dark web to recruit and exploit children, utilizing technology to evade detection, reach wider audiences, and disseminate exploitative content.
The causes of child trafficking are as diverse as the ways in which children are exploited.
Children are subjected to various forms of trafficking, including exploitation in forced labour, criminality or begging, trafficked for illegal adoption, recruitment into armed forces, and online and sexual abuse and exploitation.
Root causes are manifold, including poverty, inadequate support of unaccompanied children amidst rising migration and refugee flows, armed conflicts, dysfunctional families, and lack of parental care. Notably, in low-income countries, children are often trafficked for forced labour, whereas in high-income countries, sexual exploitation remains prevalent among child victims.
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Identification and protection of child victims remain challenging due to underreporting, lack of awareness, and inadequate resources for victim support services. Traffickers often employ coercion, deception, and threats to maintain control over their victims, making it difficult for authorities to intervene.
To effectively combat this scourge, concerted efforts are needed at both national and international levels. States must prioritize child protection, bolster legislation, improve law enforcement, and allocate more resources to combat child trafficking. Prevention efforts should target root causes like poverty and inequality to reduce children's vulnerability. Special attention must be paid to trafficking of children on the move.
Strengthening child protection systems and implementing child-sensitive justice mechanisms are crucial for supporting victims and holding perpetrators accountable. Addressing online child exploitation requires innovative strategies, collaboration between tech companies and law enforcement, and robust legal frameworks.
Civil society organizations, the private sector, and communities have a vital role in raising awareness, providing support services, and advocating for policy reforms.
Abandoned by her family, forced to sleep with men, and living inside a box – and all by the time Agnija* was only 11 years old.
She was still only a child, but she had already lost all hope of escaping the nightmare she had been living.
Her story is one of thousands of child victims of human trafficking, who make up over 30 per cent of all identified trafficking victims globally - a figure that is five times higher than it was 15 years ago.
Child trafficking involves the use of children for the purpose of exploitation in various ways. It is a serious crime and a severe violation of human rights.
It is irrelevant whether a child appears to have “consented” in some way to being exploited, especially when force, deception, coercion, or abuse of power or vulnerability are being used.
The UN Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking (UNVTF) provides humanitarian, legal and financial aid to victims of trafficking in persons through the awarding of grants to civil society organizations. Victoria Nyanjura was recently elected as Chair of the UNVTF and is the first-ever survivor of human trafficking to serve on the Board.
Human trafficking is a pressing global problem that continues to affect millions of people, despite widespread efforts to combat it.
To shed light on this pervasive issue, here are eight key facts about human trafficking in the 21st century that help to better understand why this crime occurs, how victims are recruited and exploited, and the links between human trafficking and migration, climate change or conflict.
