“'The report was undertaken for a simple reason: if we want to succeed in confronting human trafficking in all its manifestations, we must better understand its scope and structure,' said Yury Fedotov, UNODC’s Executive Director as he presented the report in New York. 'We need to appreciate where human trafficking is happening, who are its victims and who is perpetrating this crime.'
According to the latest figures compiled by UNODC, the record conviction and detection rates could either be a sign that countries have strengthened their capacity to identify victims – such as through specific legislation, better coordination among law enforcement entities, and improved victim protection services – or, that the number of actual instances of trafficking has increased.
While in 2003 fewer than 20,000 cases had been recorded, the number of cases recorded in 2016 had jumped to over 25,000.
...'Traffickers the world over continue to target women and girls,' wrote Executive Director Fedotov, in the report’s preface. ‘The vast majority of detected victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and 35 per cent of those trafficked for forced labour are female.'"
Read the full article here. For more on this topic, see the Human Trafficking special collection on VAWnet.
