Shedding Light on Human Trafficking Around the World at the U.N.

July 30, 2022, marked the U.N.'s annual event, the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. Ahead of this event, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres lamented the fact that the scourge of human trafficking is “a problem that is growing worse – especially for women and girls, who represent the majority of detected trafficked persons globally.”

As we have detailed to the U.N. in the past, human trafficking is a scourge that impacts every country to some degree. Human traffickers are vile criminals who view people as a commodity to be bought and sold like goods. To them, people are only valuable if they can be exploited for financial gain.

As a part of our ongoing effort to shed light on the scourge of human trafficking and advocate for justice and aid for the victims, we just filed eight reports for the 42nd Session of the U.N.'s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) detailing human trafficking in Peru, Czech Republic (Czechia), Gabon, Zambia, Japan, Benin, Argentina, and Ghana (part of the 13 human rights and persecution reports that we recently filed at the U.N.).

In Peru, 394 cases of human trafficking were reported to police in 2020 alone and 245 of these reported cases involved sexual exploitation. One such victim of sex trafficking in Peru shared her story of how she was sent by her aunt to work as a waitress. However, she found herself instead being sexually exploited at her job. As she explained, “[a]t the bar, I was taught to wear make-up, high heels and dress accordingly . . . . At first it was just drinking and dancing with the miners but then it was sex. I was ashamed of myself.” This tragic story is all too common, and we are shining a light on this darkness directly before the U.N.

As we stated in our report on Czechia, it “serves as both a transit and destination country for human trafficking, but traffickers most often use Czechia to transition victims from one country to another; mainly to other countries in Europe.” For example:

In November 2019, five individuals were sentenced to prison for trafficking thirteen men and women over a four-year period from Czechia to Manchester in the UK. The traffickers specifically targeted vulnerable individuals and promised them good paying jobs. However, instead of the good jobs that they were promised when they arrived in Manchester, the victims were stripped of their identifying documents and forced to work with no pay under the threat of violence.

In Gabon, human trafficking for purposes of domestic servitude is the most prevalent form of human trafficking. As we elaborated in our report, “children who are trafficked for these purposes receive an inadequate amount of food and very little if any, money. They are forced to live in horrible conditions and even sleep on the floor.”

Zambia shares a border with eight different countries making it easier for traffickers to transport the victims across the region. Traffickers predominately target women and children for forced labor, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude. In Zambia, human trafficking is a “highly organized efficient network of criminals that target vulnerable children and women from and within rural areas.”

In Japan, the sex industry is worth an estimated $24 billion and, because of this, traffickers prey on women and use lies to draw them into the sex industry. In fact, it is estimated that every year between “10,000 and 15,000 women and children are smuggled into Japan with fake papers to work in the local sex industry.”  In our report, we highlighted a story of human traffickers exploiting 30 women in the sex industry:

In November 2020, two individuals were arrested for operating a sex parlor in Tokyo and engaging in human trafficking. The two individuals hired Vietnamese women to provide sexual services to their clients. Between April and November 2020, the individuals made 100 million yen ($950,000) in sales by exploiting 30 women.

In Benin, children from low-income families are targeted for human trafficking. As we stated in our report:

These children are targeted for exploitation in domestic service, agriculture, and markets. Girls are targeted and forced into sex trafficking in urban areas. In fact, “Benin is a country of origin, transit and destination of child trafficking. It is estimated that more than 40,000 victims of child trafficking live in this country – two percent of the 6- to 17-year-old population – most of whom are girls from uneducated families.”

In Argentina, the most prevalent form of human trafficking involves women and children being trafficked for sexual exploitation. In our report, we highlighted one story in particular of women being trafficked to work in illegal sex brothels: “On July 7, 2020, authorities arrested a Paraguayan couple who was operating an illegal brothel in Buenos Aires. The brothel had “rooms for rent” where people would pay for sex.

Child trafficking, particularly in the Lake Volta region, is the most prevalent form of trafficking in Ghana. As we stated in our report:

“More than one-third of the 1,620 households surveyed in an and around Lake Volta housed a victim of child trafficking or someone held in slave-like conditions.” Furthermore, the International Labour Organization (ILO) “estimates there are 20,000 children living and working in slavery in the Volta region and surrounding fishing communities.” In this region, children are valued for their small fingers that can be used to fix and untether fishing nets. These children are subjected to dangerous jobs and physical assault.

Tragically, these are just a few examples of the many cases of human trafficking that are going on around the world today. Here at the ACLJ, we will continue to shed light on the scourge of human trafficking and demand action from the world's leaders to combat and end this horror.