Overviews and Factsheets

Factsheet on Human Trafficking
Answers to questions on human trafficking, including: the question of consent of the victims, relation to organized crime, and UN conventions and protocols.  R
UN Office on Drug and Crime

Human Trafficking - Questions Answered
Trafficking is a modern-day slave trade. Traffickers use violence, coercion and deception to take people away from their homes and families, and force them to work against their will. This factsheet provides background and explanation of the issue of human trafficking.  R
Stop Human Traffic (campaign of Anti-Slavery International)

Human Trafficking Facts
Brief factsheet on human trafficking, with a focus on women and children trafficked into the United States.  R
CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking)

Human trafficking Q & A
Trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are forced into slavery. It affects every continent and most countries. In order to clarify how this trade is slavery and a violation of human rights, Anti-Slavery International has produced this Question and Answer sheet.  R
Anti-Slavery International

Sex Trafficking: Facts & Figures
Factsheet on human trafficking, including general statistics; relation to women in armed conflict; who are the traffickers; trafficking and corruption; and child victims of trafficking.  R
The Protection Project

Slavery: Factsheet on Contemporary Forms of Slavery
Slavery was the first human rights issue to arouse wide international concern. Yet, in the face of universal condemnation, slavery-like practices - including human trafficking - remain a grave and persistent problem worldwide.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (Summary)
A brief summary of the new United Nations international agreement against human trafficking.  R
UN Office on Drug and Crime

Trafficking in Children
Factsheet on trafficking in children for sexual exploitation.  R
ECPAT International

Trafficking in Persons Report 2003 - Factsheet
Women, children, and men are trafficked into the international sex trade and into forced labor situations throughout the world. This is a brief fact sheet on human trafficking.
U.S. Department of State

Trafficking in Persons: the New Protocol
A brief introduction to the issue of human trafficking, and background to the new United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
UN Office on Drug and Crime

What is modern slavery?
Millions of men, women and children around the world are forced to lead lives as slaves. This brief overview provides an introduction and discusses some of the forms that slavery takes in the modern world.  R
Anti-Slavery International

What is trafficking in persons?
There is no consensus on a definition of trafficking in persons. However, any definition should address three main questions: What are the acts of trafficking? What are the means of trafficking? What are the purposes of trafficking?
The Protection Project

World faces deluge of human trafficking (news article)
Rich nations face a rising tide of trafficking in human cargo -- mostly women and girls forced into prostitution -- and have been unable or unwilling to stop the criminal gangs behind this "modern-day slavery," experts say.  R
Reuters, August 31, 2000

International Trafficking of Women and Children
Background briefing given as testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Human Rights Watch

Trafficking in Human Beings: The Slavery that Surrounds Us
At the end of the last century, the world witnessed the growth of a modern form of slavery -- trafficking in human beings. Nongovernmental organizations have been instrumental in raising global concern about human trafficking. This author reports that significant action is still necessary to protect the human rights of the victims.  R
Ann Jordan, International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG)

Borderline Slavery: Child Trafficking in Togo
This report documents the trafficking of children in Togo, in particular the trafficking of girls into domestic and market work and the trafficking of boys into agricultural work, as illustrative of the larger regional and global problem of human trafficking.
Human Rights Watch

Guide to the New UN Trafficking Protocol
"The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children is a wide-ranging international agreement to address the crime of trafficking in persons, especially women and children, on a transnational level. This is a guide to the new international agreement.
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women

Human Rights Standards for the Treatment of Trafficked Persons
Enumerates concrete actions governments should undertake in order to fulfill their international human rights obligations to trafficked persons. The document serves as a benchmark for assessing the adequacy of legal and policy responses to trafficking. NGOs are using the Human Rights Standards to educate the media, police, prosecutors, immigration officials, other NGOs and trafficked persons, as well as to advocate for appropriate legal and policy responses by their governments.
IHRLG, Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Foundation Against Trafficking in Women

Human Traffic, Human Rights: Redefining victim protection
Securing prosecutions of traffickers is not the same as protecting victims' rights. This report looks at measures to protect trafficked people in Belgium, Colombia, Italy, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Thailand, Ukraine, the UK and the US.
Anti-Slavery International, 2002

The Migration-Trafficking Nexus: Combating trafficking through the protection of migrants' human rights
Trafficking, smuggling and migration are separate, but inter-related issues. This publication seeks to look at the issue of trafficking within a broader migration framework and to propose policies which would be effective in reducing trafficking and in preventing the human and labour rights violations to which migrant workers are so often subjected today.
Anti-Slavery International, 2003

Trafficking in Human Beings in Southeastern Europe
This report, released on July 22, 2002 by UNICEF, UNOHCHR, and ODIHR, reviews the situation and responses to trafficking in human beings in the countries of Southeastern Europe (SEE): Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova and Romania. These are the countries of origin, transit and destination for the trafficking of women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Children are also trafficked from Albania into Greece and Italy for the purpose of forced labor.
UNICEF, UNOHCHR, ODIHR

Trafficking in Persons
Issue on human trafficking in the journal on global issues by the U.S. State Dept.
Global Issues, U.S. Department of State, June 2003

Trafficking in Persons Report 2003
Issued by the U.S. State Department, this report is the most comprehensive report on the efforts of governments worldwide to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons or “modern-day slavery.”
U.S. Department of State

Asia's sex trade is 'slavery'
A United Nations official has described the trafficking of women and children across Asia as "the largest slave trade in history".  R
BBC, 20 February, 2003

Human trade: The fastest-growing crime
In the first 10 months of 2000, more than 50,00 illegal immigrants passed through Bosnia en route to the West.
CNN In-Depth Special: Immigration

Push to stop child trafficking in Bangladesh - BBC News
International experts are meeting in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, on Monday to look at ways to stop child trafficking and exploitation. Human rights activists and aid agencies say thousands of children in Bangladesh suffer on a daily basis.  R
BBC News, January, 2003

Sex Slaves: Europe's Trade in Drugs, Guns and Women
MSNBC.com's four-month investigation into the sex trade in Europe.
MSNBC.com Special Report

U.N. Anti-Slavery Day Highlights Plight of World's Enslaved Millions
On 2 December, the world marks United Nations International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. But slavery continues, despite being against the law. Millions of women, children and men around the world are living in slavery today. Human trafficking is the fastest growing form of slavery. (UN news article)  R
U.N. Observer, Dec. 2, 2003

Understanding the Demand behind Human Trafficking
In this working paper Kevin Bales examines the market factors underlying the rise of human trafficking
Kevin Bales, Free the Slaves