Since medieval history, human beings still practiced not so good social-cultural lifestyles such as forced marriages, female genital mutilations, debt bondage and slavery; to name but a few. The human behaviour and the socio-cultural practices have over the centuries transformed and changed with the industrial revolution and the modern societal practices as understood today.
Towards the end of the 20th century, slave trade was assumed to be a thing of the past and all civilized societies demonstrated increased degrees of freedoms and adherence to universal declaration on the human rights as guided by the United Nations’ resolutions.
But alas! In mid-1900’s, Human trafficking had started to pick up momentum as a lucrative criminal enterprise whose sole purpose was profiteering. By the year 2000, at Palermo, Italy, the whole world acknowledged that indeed human trafficking had become a thorn on the life humanity and it had exemplified itself as modern-day slavery. The Palermo protocol therefore marked the first major global effort to develop an international instrument that championed a collective effort by UN Member States.
Every country in the world is affected by human trafficking
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Human trafficking is a crime that exploits women, children and men for numerous purposes including forced labour and sex. Since 2003 the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has collected information on about 225,000 victims of trafficking detected worldwide. Globally countries are detecting and reporting more victims and are convicting more traffickers. This can be the result of increased capacity to identify victims and/or an increased number of trafficked victims.
In 2006, responding to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) request for intergovernmental agencies to further cooperate in order to strengthen technical assistance provided to countries in the area of human trafficking, the Government of Japan hosted a coordination meeting of international organizations working to counter trafficking in persons. The participating organizations (ILO, IOM, UNICEF, UN Women, UNHCR and UNODC) decided to continue the effort initiated and proposed the creation of a coordination group. The Inter-Agency Coordination Group Against Human Trafficking (ICAT) was formally established in March 2007.
In 2010, the UN General Assembly adopted the Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, urging Governments worldwide to take coordinated and consistent measures to defeat this scourge. The Plan calls for integrating the fight against human trafficking into the UN’s broader programmes in order to boost development and strengthen security worldwide. One of the crucial provisions in the Plan is the establishment of a UN Voluntary Trust Fund for victims of trafficking, especially women and children.
The Trust Fund facilitates effective, on-the-ground assistance and protection to victims of trafficking, through grants to specialized NGOs. It aims to prioritize victims coming from a context of armed conflict and those identified among large refugee and migration flows.
In 2013, the General Assembly held a high-level meeting to appraise the Global Plan of Action. Member States also adopted resolution A/RES/68/192 and designated July 30 as the World Day against Trafficking in Persons. This resolution declared that such a day was necessary to “raise awareness of the situation of victims of human trafficking and for the promotion and protection of their rights.”
In September 2015, the world adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and embraced goals and targets on trafficking in persons. These goals call for an end to trafficking and violence against children; as well as the need for measures against human trafficking, and they strive for the elimination of all forms of violence against and exploitation of women and girls.
Another important development is the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, which produced the ground breaking New York Declaration. Of the nineteen commitments adopted by countries in the Declaration, three are dedicated to concrete action against the crimes of human trafficking and migrant smuggling.
Every country in the world is affected by human trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit, or destination for victims. Traffickers the world over continue to target women and girls. The vast majority of detected victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and 35 per cent of those trafficked for forced labour are female. Conflict further exacerbates vulnerabilities, with armed groups exploiting civilians and traffickers targeting forcibly displaced people.