• There are no accurate statistics of how many people are involved, but it is estimated that in the last 30 years, trafficking in women and children in Asia for sexual exploitation alone has victimized over 30 million people. In comparison, 12 million Africans were sold as slaves to the New World between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. (Centre for International Crime Prevention).

• National and international legal structures are inadequate to deal with the trafficking in human beings.

• While there are different patterns of exploitation in different parts of the world, children are trafficked for a number of purposes, including:

  -sexual exploitation;
  -adoption;
  -child labour (e.g., domestic work, begging, criminal work like selling drugs);
  -participation in armed conflicts;
  -marriage;
  -camel racing;
  -organ trade
  

• The victims of trafficking or their caregivers are often seeking escape from poverty. The children most likely to be trafficked are girls, those from tribal groups and ethnic minorities, stateless people and refugees (according to the UN special rapporteur).

• Some children (or their parents) are lured by promises of education, a new skill or a "good job"; other children are kidnapped outright, taken from their home villages or towns and then bought and sold like commodities. Often they are crammed into boats or trucks without enough air, water or food. When their smugglers are threatened by discovery, the children may be abandoned or even killed. If they reach their destination, they end up in situations of forced labor, forced prostitution, domestic service or involuntary marriage. They are virtual slaves, who have been stripped of their human rights.

• Children who are trafficked lose contact with their families. They are taken into an entirely new situation, often to another country, to a place where they don't know anyone and don't speak the language. They are vulnerable to many kinds of abuse, including sexual abuse. It is difficult for them to seek help not just because they are children but because they are often illegal immigrants and have false documents or no documents.

• Boys who are trafficked in armed conflicts are usually used as soldiers, while girls are usually forced to be servants who are often used sexually by the soldiers as well.

• Different cultural situations produce different types of exploitation. In India, for example, the caste system and a history of bonded labour mean that tribal and low-caste children are more likely to be trafficked than others. In West Africa, a long tradition of sending one's children to work in the home of a better-off relative or friend has facilitated the trafficking of ever-increasing numbers of children, especially for domestic work.

• Child trafficking works through personal and familial networks as well as through highly organized international criminal networks. Recruiters are often local people. Trafficking routes change rapidly to adjust to changing economic or political circumstances or the opening of new markets. However, the main trafficking routes are from south to north and from east to west:

  -from Latin America to North America, Europe and the Middle East;
  -from countries of the former Soviet bloc to the Baltic States and Western Europe;
  -from Romania to Italy, and through Turkey and Cyprus to Israel and the Middle East;
  -from West Africa to the Middle East;
  -from Thailand and the Philippines to Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan;
  -from Cambodia, Myanmar, and Viet Nam to Thailand; and
  -from Nepal and Bangladesh to India; and from India and Pakistan to the Middle East.

• Poor economic conditions, poverty, unemployment, an upsurge in international organized crime, the low status of girls, lack of education, inadequate or non-existent legislation and/or poor law enforcement – all contribute to the increase in child trafficking. Trafficking becomes intensified in situations of war, natural disaster and lax regard for human rights.

  Statistics

• Between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepali girls are trafficked every year across the border to India. Most of them end up as sex workers in brothels in Bombay and New Delhi. An estimated 200,000 Nepali women, most of them girls under 18, work in Indian cities (estimates by Maiti Nepal, Child Workers in Nepal and National Commission for Women in India).

• An estimated 10,000 women and girls from neighboring countries have been lured into commercial sex establishments in Thailand. Recent Thai Government policy to eradicate child prostitution means that fewer girls are being trafficked from northern Thailand and more girls and women are being brought from Myanmar, southern China, Laos and Cambodia (estimates by ECPAT [End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism]).

• China's Public Security Bureau reported 6,000 cases of trafficking of children in 1997, with a steady increase in girls aged 14 and 15 (Oxfam).

• UNICEF estimates that 1,000 to 1,500 Guatemalan babies and children a year are trafficked for adoption by foreign couples in North America and Europe.

• Girls as young as 13 (mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe) are trafficked as "mail-order brides". In most cases these girls and women are powerless and isolated and at great risk of violence (quoted by La Strada, Ukraine and Sanlaap, India).

• Large numbers of children are being trafficked in West and Central Africa, mainly for domestic work but also for sexual exploitation, to work in shops or on farms, to be scavengers or street hawkers. Nearly 90 per cent of these trafficked domestic workers are girls.

• Children from Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana are trafficked to Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Gabon. Children are trafficked both in and out of Benin and Nigeria. Some children are sent as far away as the Middle East and Europe.

Article Sections:

• Introduction
  
• Nature of the Issue
  
• UNICEF Policy
  
• Measures Adopted