Less than 0.5% of human trafficking victims identified last year

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Atlantic Council
17 Jun 2023 09:54

This report on human trafficking matches one by the United Nations (UN) Protocol to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the 2022 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report launch ceremony at the State Department in Washington, DC, US on July 19, 2022 (AFP)

Upon releasing their annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) on Thursday, the US Department of State showed in its report that forced labor is sustaining global supply chains and children are being hired for commercial sex, while governments fail to enforce sufficient action plans and treaties to stop the cycle.

According to the report, only 115,324 human trafficking victims in the last year were identified by governments, which comes from data provided to the US State Department by governments that receive the number of victims identified by law enforcement and NGOs.

This report matches with the United Nations (UN) Protocol to Combat Trafficking in Persons, which is a subscribed instrument of international law, which governments commit to in order to identify the people whom traffickers exploit.

According to UN estimates, traffickers are forcing 27.6 million people into forced labor or sex trafficking.

If governments are only identifying 115,324 victims out of the 27.6 million, that means only less than half of 1% of the estimated victims (0.4%) are identified and 99.6% go unidentified and remain trapped by their traffickers.

State-sanctioned human trafficking is increasingly becoming an obstacle in the identification process, as the TIP report claimed that in 11 countries, governments were themselves were the traffickers.

Former US ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons, John Cotton Richmond, wrote in The Atlantic Council suggestions or ways to tackle the pressing matter and facilitate identification.

- Enforce educators and health care providers to become mandatory reporters.

- Launch specialized investigative units and hire prosecutors focused on stopping the rings.

- Open pathways for survivors to erase the criminal records caused by their traffickers.

- Impose rules on companies to refrain from using forced laborers to make products such as solar panels, electric vehicles, apparel, produce, and batteries.

- Fund trauma services for survivors.

- Include survivors in the process to put traffickers out of business.

If those matters are not taken into consideration, traffickers will find it easier to thrive and continue their business, he wrote.