Trafficking of children is a form of human trafficking and is defined by the United Nations as the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, and/or receipt" kidnapping of a child for the purpose of slavery, forced labour, and exploitation. This definition is substantially wider than the same document's definition of "trafficking in persons". Children may also be trafficked for adoption.
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
Janice G. Raymond is an American lesbian radical feminist and professor emerita of women's studies and medical ethics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is known for her work against violence, sexual exploitation, and medical abuse of women, and for her controversial work denouncing transsexuality and the transgender rights movement.
Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) is a network of more than 80 non-governmental organizations from all regions of the world that fight against trafficking in persons. GAATW is committed to work for changes in the political, economic, social, and legal systems and structures which contribute to the persistence of trafficking in persons and other human rights violations in the context of migratory movements for diverse purposes, including security of labour and livelihood. It was founded in 1994 by several activists.
Sanlaap is an Indian feminist non-governmental organisation, established by Indrani Sinha in 1987 in Calcutta. Based in Calcutta, the group aims to protect the human rights of women and girls. Sanlaap is a developmental organisation that works towards correction of social imbalances which present themselves as gender injustice and violence against women and children. The primary work is focused against trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and forced prostitution. As part of its work, the group starts shops to train girls to make a living and foster their independence.
Surveys of victims of crime have been undertaken in many cities and countries, using a common methodology to aid comparability, and have generally included questions on sexual violence. The United Nations has conducted extensive surveys to determine the level of sexual violence in different societies. According to these studies, the percentage of women reporting having been a victim of sexual assault ranges from less than 2% in places such as La Paz, Bolivia (1.4%), Gaborone, Botswana (0.8%), Beijing, China (1.6%), and Manila, Philippines (0.3%), to 5% or more in Istanbul, Turkey (6.0%), Buenos Aires, Argentina (5.8%), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (8.0%), and Bogota, Colombia (5.0%).
Human trafficking in South Africa occurs as a practice of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation among imported and exported trafficked men, women, and children. Generally, South African girls are trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic servitude, while boys are used for street vending, food service, and agriculture. Anecdotal evidence suggests that South African children can also be forced to provide unpaid labor for landowners in return for land occupancy, living accommodation, or for maintaining labor tenancy rights. In any case, this form of unpaid labor has caused human trafficking to be described as a modern form of slavery. Human trafficking is the result of a combination of several factors, including gender inequality, economic instability, and political conflict. Since Africa experiences all of these, it is an active hub for human trafficking. Many urge for the need of a cultural shift to reduce instances of human trafficking by lessening the demand for sex and unpaid labor.
The United Kingdom (UK) is a destination country for men, women, and children primarily from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe who are subjected to human trafficking for the purposes of sexual slavery and forced labour, including domestic servitude. It is ranked as a "Tier 1" country by the US Department of State, which issues an annual report on human trafficking. "Tier 1" countries are those whose governments fully comply with The Trafficking Victims Protection Act's minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The TVPA is a federal statute of the United States. It is believed that some victims, including minors from the UK, are also trafficked within the country. It is also believed that migrant workers are trafficked to the UK for forced labour in agriculture, construction, food processing, domestic servitude, and food service. Source countries for trafficking victims in the UK include the United Arab Emirates, Lithuania, Russia, Albania, Ukraine, Malaysia, Thailand, the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Nigeria, and Ghana. Precise details about the extent of human trafficking within the UK are not available, and many have questioned the validity of some of the more widely quoted figures. In 2020, the US State Department estimated that there were 13,000 trafficking victims in the UK.
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. It is distinct from people smuggling, which is characterized by the consent of the person being smuggled.
Human trafficking in Canada is prohibited by law, and is considered a criminal offence whether it occurs entirely within Canada or involves the "transporting of persons across Canadian borders. Public Safety Canada (PSC) defines human trafficking as "the recruitment, transportation, harbouring and/or exercising control, direction or influence over the movements of a person in order to exploit that person, typically through sexual exploitation or forced labour. It is often described as a modern form of slavery."
Kathleen Maltzahn is an Australian author, academic and anti-sex work activist. She is a former councillor for the City of Yarra and was the Australian Greens Victoria candidate for the state seat of Richmond in the 2010, 2014 and 2018 Victorian elections.
Human trafficking in Nepal is a growing criminal industry affecting multiple other countries beyond Nepal, primarily across Asia and the Middle East. Nepal is mainly a source country for men, women and children subjected to the forced labor and sex trafficking. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2" in 2017.
Sex trafficking is defined as the transportation of persons by means of coercion, deception and/or forced into exploitative and slavery-like conditions and is commonly associated with organized crime.
Nepal, a Himalayan country situated in South Asia, is one of the poor country because of undeveloped resources. It has suffered from political instability and has had undemocratic rule for much of its history. There is a lack of access to basic facilities, people have superstitious beliefs, and there are high levels of gender discrimination. Although the Constitution provides for protection of women, including equal pay for equal work, the Government has not taken significant action to implement its provisions.
Polly Roy OBE is a professor and Chair of Virology at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She attended a number of schools which included Columbia University Medical School, Rutgers University, University of Alabama, and University of Oxford. In 2001 she became a part of The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and, along with being the chair of Virology, is also the co-organiser of the medical microbiology course. The virus that she has dedicated most of her career to is Bluetongue disease that affects sheep and cattle. She became interested in this virus after attending a symposium and was intrigued by the fact that not much was known about the virus that was causing such a nasty and sometimes fatal disease.
Vikram Harshad Patel FMedSci is an Indian psychiatrist and researcher best known for his work on child development and mental disability in low-resource settings. He is the Co-Founder and former Director of the Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Co-Director of the Centre for Control of Chronic Conditions at the Public Health Foundation of India, and the Co-Founder of Sangath, an Indian NGO dedicated to research in the areas of child development, adolescent health and mental health. Since 2016 he has been Pershing Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine of Harvard Medical School in Boston. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship in 2015. In April 2015, he was listed as one of the world's 100 most influential people by TIME magazine.
Eleanor Mary Riley was Director of the Roslin Institute, Dean of Research at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, and professor of Immunology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focusses on understanding the immune response of the host to malaria and other diseases using human data and mouse models.
Charlotte Helen Watts, is a British mathematician, epidemiologist, and academic. Since 2006, she has been Professor of Social and Mathematical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was also the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department for International Development from 2015 to 2020. Her research interests include HIV and gender-based violence.
Claire Bayntun is a British physician specialised in global public health, director of Global Leadership Programmes, assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, advisor on health security and health protection, and trained mentor who coaches health leaders. She is vice-president of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.
Heidi Stöckl is a German researcher and sociologist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her research investigates gender-based violence and human trafficking. She has previously worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and with the World Health Organization on the design and implementation of strategies to end violence against women.
