The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Research Team on Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants has released its Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2024.
This report covers 156 countries from around the world and reveals a significant increase in human trafficking cases compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Cases of child trafficking have increased in high-income countries and along migratory routes, and account for 38% of all trafficking victims. A portion of the report is dedicated to examining the root causes of trafficking in persons in and from Africa, where “displacement, insecurity and climate change are exacerbating the vulnerability of the Africans being trafficked.” The final portion of the report details trafficking findings by region: African and the Middle East, The Americas, South and East Asia, the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia.
The report illustrates how flows and trends of trafficking are ever changing and calls for responding agencies to adapt to a dark and dynamic landscape. Justice, child protection, and assistance agencies must not only work to prevent trafficking, but heighten their responses to keep up with the rise of trafficking for forced labor and an increasing number of international trafficking routes.
For more resources related to this report, please visit HSDL‘s In Focus collection on Human Trafficking.