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Home > The Gazette > Vol. 70 No. 2 > Gazette - Human trafficking 

Gazette - Human trafficking

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JUST THE FACTS

— the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons for the purposes of exploitation — is a growing criminal enterprise. Millions of victims worldwide are forced, coerced or deceived into lives as prostitutes, manual labourers, domestic workers — even organ donors and child soldiers — and traffickers are cashing in big-time. Here’s a look at the facts.

  • The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are between two and four million victims of human trafficking worldwide at any given time.
  • Research completed by the U.S. Department of State in 2006 indicates that approximately 800,000 people are trafficked between countries each year, but most victims are trafficked within their own countries.
  • Some 80 per cent of transnational trafficking victims are women and girls and up to 50 per cent are minors.
  • Trafficked victims are most often forced into sex work (32 per cent), construction (17 per cent), entertainment/dancing/bartending (13 per cent) and agriculture (12 per cent).
  • From 2003 to 2006, the U.S. Department of State recorded a total of 27,303 human trafficking prosecutions and 13,766 convictions, worldwide.
  • Human trafficking activities generate some $32 billion US annually, according to the United Nations. Only drug trafficking generates higher criminal profits.
  • A typical trafficker relocates his victims every 15 to 30 days.
  • Most traffickers are the same nationality as their victims and usually have no criminal records.
  • The majority of customers for trafficked children are transient males — particularly military personnel, truck drivers, seasonal workers, conventioneers and sex tourists — according to a report by the RAND Corporation and the Ohio Chiefs of Police.
  • A “considerable percentage” of the erotic services ads posted on Craigslist.org advertise trafficked women and children, according to research by the Polaris Project against slavery.
  • The Scotland Yard notes that trafficked women from Eastern Europe are a “predominant feature” of the off-street prostitution trade in Soho, London.
  • In the U.S., a medium-sized Korean-operated massage parlor that exploits trafficked victims might earn up to $1.17 billion per year. A brothel would earn even more.
  • The RCMP estimates that 600 people are trafficked into Canada each year for sexual exploitation and at least 800 for all domestic markets. An additional 1,500 to 2,200 people are trafficked from Canada into the United States.
  • Human trafficking is linked to major international sporting events — Greek authorities saw a 95 per cent increase in the number of trafficking cases in 2004, the year Greece hosted the Summer Olympics.
  • Traffickers in industrialized countries make an average of $67,200 US per trafficked sex worker per year, according to the ILO.
  • Human trafficking is not the same as human smuggling. Smuggled individuals willingly consent to travel across borders and are usually free upon arrival in the destination country.
SOURCES:
Date Modified: 2008-05-30

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