Fact Sheets

Facts About Human Trafficking

In the world

• About 700,000 to 2 million people mainly women and children are being trafficked every year.
• About 10 million trafficked people, specially women and children, are surviving and working at risk.
• Human trafficking is the third biggest illegal trade which makes annual profit upto $5 billion to $7 billion after drugs smuggling and gun running.
• The present rate of trafficking in children is already 10 times higher than the trans-Atlantic slave trade at its peak. Trafficking is the fastest growing form of forced labour.
• Despite many international Conventions and Optional Protocols against trafficking for slave trade, millions of children are still being trapped by this heinous crime for forced labour, domestic servitude, forced beggary, illegal adoption, forced marriage, criminal activities, and to become soldiers, camel jockeys and for other labour exploitation.

In Nepal

• Every year, 5,000 to 7,000 women and children are trafficked into India for forced prostitution.
• 20% (i.e. 40,000) of trafficked Nepali women and children for sex trade in India are girls below 16 years of age.
• Except for sex trade, thousands of Nepali children are trafficked into India to work in carpet factories in Bhadoi (Mirjapur), circus (e.g. Firojabad), potato farms, road construction in Shimla, forced beggary (e.g.. Banaras), domestic child labour in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, etc.
• Demystifying the belief that only girls from specific geographical area and community are being trafficked, this crime has expanded to every area and community including boys and men.
• In last April, 26 young boys mostly from Muslim community, were rescued from Janakpur Railway Station while being trafficked to India "to work in embroidery industry". This is an example of a new form of cross-border trafficking in children.

What is Trafficking

Definition

All Acts involved in the recruitment and/or transportation of a person within and across national borders for work or services by means of violence or threats of violence, abuse of authority or dominant position, debt bondage, deception or other forms of coercion. (GAATW)

Kinds of Work

Farming, Child Camel Jockeys, Carpet Factories, Forced Beggary, Domestic Service, Criminal Activities, Forced Marriage, Sex Market, Illegal Adoption etc.

Location

Human trafficking is not concentrated only in particular geographical areas, it has affected every continent and most countries.

Prohibitions

The UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of others (1951).
The UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000).

Legal Enforcement

Despite the existence of national and international laws, state machinery of most of the countries is proved ineffective to fight against trafficking in action.