Human trafficking has taken on “horrific” dimensions, according to the 2018 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons released this month by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The report, which looked at data from 142 countries between 2014 and 2016, points to two particularly disturbing trends, says Angela Me, chief of the research and trend team at UNODC. The first is the increasing number of girls forced into trafficking, most frequently for sexual exploitation. The other is the growing prevalence of trafficking as a tool of war.
Nearly 25,000 cases of human trafficking were reported to UNODC in 2016, up from approximately 20,000 in 2014 and 17,000 in 2013. Me cautions that the increases reported by UNODC may reflect more trafficking, or, alternatively, greater reporting by authorities, or perhaps a combination of both.
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