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20 years of the United Nations Traffickingin Persons Protocol
This edition of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons is published on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (also referred to as the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol or the UN Protocol).
The UN Protocol was opened for signature on the 12th of December 2000 in Palermo, Italy. Since then, the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol has reached almost universal ratification, totalling 178 parties. Its implementation has resulted in an enhanced capacity to detect, prosecute and prevent trafficking in persons across the entire international community.
As documented in this Report, before the UN Protocol entered into force, most countries did not have adequate legal frameworks that criminalized trafficking, meaning victims were unidentified, traffickers went unpunished and trafficking in persons occurred with impunity.
Twenty years later, over 90 per cent of the United Nations Member States have established a specific offence for the criminalisation of trafficking, and the definition of trafficking in persons is almost universally based on the UN Protocol. Over the last decade, marked improvements in the legislative framework were recorded particularly in the Americas, Asia and the Middle East (seethe section on institutional responses on page 51in this Report).
Addressing trafficking beyond the criminal justice response
The UN Protocol supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), the main international legal instrument in the fight against transnational organized crime. The purposes of the UN Protocol transcend the facilitation of efficient international cooperation in investigating and prosecuting trafficking in persons cases, establishing a specific focus on prevention, paying particular attention to preventing the exploitation of women and children. Furthermore, an additional purpose of the UN Protocol is to protect and assist victims of trafficking, with full respect for their human rights.
In this respect, the UN Protocol calls on State Parties to consider implementing measures for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims, through the provision of appropriate housing, counselling and information, medical and material assistance, as well as employment and opportunities for education and training. Equally important, the UN Protocol invites State Parties to consider measures that permit migrant victims of trafficking in persons to remain in the country of detection, either temporarily or permanently.
Moreover, Article 9, paragraph 4 of the UN Protocol calls on State Parties to address the structural factors that increase vulnerabilities to trafficking, such as poverty, underdevelopment and a lack of equal opportunity – including economic, gender, sexual orientation and/or ethnic inequalities. This call has become particularly relevant now, as the international community prepares for the imminent global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This edition of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons includes an analysis of the conditions that expose individuals to the risk of being trafficked. An in-depth examination of cases shows that traffickers target irregular migrants and teenagers with difficult upbringings, and those in desperate need of employment or children living in extreme poverty are particularly at risk of being trafficked (see Chapter 2 - The impact of socio-economic factors on the victims’ experience and the risks of the COVID-19 Recession in this Report).
Resulting from the COVID-19 health crisis, the world is today facing an impending economic crisis that will increase unemployment globally, widening social and economic inequalities, and thus potentially impacting the landscape of trafficking worldwide.
As the world is facing such global challenge, today more than ever, relying on multilateralism and effective internationally binding legal instruments such as the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol is essential to prevent and combat trafficking in persons.
As guardian of the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is entrusted with the collection of data and reporting of patterns and flows of trafficking in persons at national, regional and international levels every two years. This mandate, set by the United Nations General Assembly, is fulfilled by the biennial UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, which acts as a resource for individuals, organisations and governments in the development of counter-trafficking policies and institutional responses.
The availability of timely and comprehensive data on patterns and flows of trafficking is essential to inform context-specific and evidence-based interventions by national authorities to assist victims and enhance investigative methods to stop criminals.
Data and information used for the Global Report 2020
As with previous years, this edition of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons presents a global picture of the patterns and flows of trafficking (Chapter 1), alongside detailed regional analyses (Chapter 6) and country profiles.
In addition, this Report provides four thematic chapters. The second chapter, the first thematic chapter, examines how poor socioeconomic conditions are used by traffickers to recruit and exploit victims. The third chapter expands on patterns of child trafficking and the roles that extreme poverty, social norms and familial backgrounds play in this form of trafficking. Then, the fourth chapter focuses on trafficking for forced labour and explores the specific economic sectors that are more vulnerable to trafficking. Finally, the fifth chapter presents emerging patterns on internet technologies that are used by traffickers to facilitate recruitment and exploitation.
The 2020 edition of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons is based on different types of information, with the main source for the analysis consisting of official statistics on the detected cases of trafficking in persons, collected from 148 countries. The countries covered encompass more than 95 per cent of the world’s population. The time period covered by the data collection for this Global Report is 2016-2018. A limited number of countries (34) also provided information for the year 2019. The official statistics collected refer to cases of trafficking officially recorded by national authorities reporting on the profiles of victims and offenders, as well as the characteristics of trafficking cases.
Data are also presented for the years before 2016 in order to discern longer-term data trends. Annual patterns and flows at the regional and global levels were derived by using “2018 (or most recent)” as the reference year, meaning that, for the countries where 2018 data were not available, the most recent data from the period covered were used (2019, 2017 or 2016).
Data and analyses presented based on the official statistics reported to UNODC by Member States are sourced as “UNODC elaboration on national data.”
An additional source of information used for this edition of the Report is a collection of summaries of national court cases. In the context of the annual data collection for the Global Report, UNODC has asked Member States to share a summary of the narrative of court cases where convictions were attained for the crime of trafficking in persons.
Over the course of eight years, UNODC has compiled these cases and the result is a collection of a total of 489 cases from 71 different countries, involving a total of 2,963 victims and 1,576 offenders. The cases were analyzed for the purpose of this report to extrapolate 21 indicators, including the characteristics of criminal networks, trafficking methods, risk factors of victims, monetary transactions among traffickers, business models used by traffickers, among others. Analyses based on this data is referred to as “GLOTIP collection of court case summaries.”
It should be noted that these analyses do not constitute a legal assessment of the cases, but rather provide for an overview of the 21 indicators. Some of these cases can be found in more detail in the UNODC Knowledge Portal on Trafficking in Persons12 and its dedicated case-law database.
Finally, the Report makes use of research literature or assessment reports produced by national authorities, international organizations and academia. The literature used is quoted in the text in the form of footnotes as standard practice.
