Trafficking in human beings: human rights and ... - unesdoc - Unesco

that directly result from the criminal justice response to this crime. Gathering accurate
criminal justice statistics, supplemented by information on the institutional and legal
framework in which the crime of traffi cking in persons is defi ned and pursued, as well
as on services available to victims from governmental and nongovernmental actors alike,
is necessary to understand where the major information gaps are, and how to improve
national responses to traffi cking.
The US Department of State Traffi cking Reports from 2006 and 2008 estimate that
600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children traffi cked across international borders
each year
80% women and girls
up to 50% are minors
ILO Global Alliance Against Forced Labour estimates that there is 2.5 million 375 people
who are victims of traffi cking. 376 The numbers are however extremely uncertain and
sometimes the same is true for how they have been collected.
375 Numbers repeated in ILO Actions Against Traffi cking from 2008.
376 Due to its clandestine nature, accurate statistics on the magnitude of the human traffi cking problem
at any level are elusive and unreliable. See UNODC: Global Patterns in Human Traffi cking, 2006:
Figures that are available range from the actual number of victims rescued or repatriated to estimates
of the total number of traffi cked victims in existence. The lack of reliable statistics can be attributed
to a number of factors. Many countries lack anti-traffi cking legislation. Even when legislation is in
place, laws may only defi ne human traffi cking as applying to certain exploitative practices, such as
sexual exploitation, and not other forms of exploitative behaviour. Moreover, in many countries, the
defi nition of human traffi cking applies only to the exploitation of women and children overlooking
the exploitation of adult male victims. Further, if comprehensive laws do exist, they are not always
enforced and victims may not be recognized as victims of crime but may be seen as smuggled migrants.
Victims may be hesitant to provide information or cooperate with authorities often out of fear of harm
to themselves or their families by either criminal networks or the legal authorities. Many countries lack
a centralized agency or coordinated statistics system so that the collection of traffi cking data, if done
at all, is done on an ad hoc basis. While inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations
assisting traffi cked victims often maintain databases on those who have been assisted, repatriated and
reintegrated, these fi gures represent a small number of human traffi cking victims worldwide. Another
problem faced in the collection of data on this topic is the tendency to, often unknowingly, mix data
related to human traffi cking, migrant-smuggling and irregular migration, which convolutes the true
human traffi cking picture. In addition, data is often collected only on cases of trans-border human
traffi cking and not on internal human traffi cking. There is a large disparity between the number of
known cases and estimates of traffi cking in persons. The Dutch National Rapporteur Against Traffi cking
in Human Beings estimates that only 5% of victims report their victimization or come to the attention
of government authorities - the number of documented cases reported in the Netherlands for the year
2002 was 201 (Bureau NRM (2005), “Traffi cking in Human Beings, Third report of the Dutch National
Rapporteur”, Den Haag: Bureau NRM). The main criticism of human traffi cking estimates is that the
ranges are often excessively wide, sometimes as much as a high of 10 times that of the low estimate. In
reports providing human traffi cking estimates, the methodology for calculating any estimates used is
rarely given. Reports also often fail to indicate whether estimates are annual fi gures or cover a period
of several years.
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