United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime

U.N. Definition (from Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Person, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime)

(a) "Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery of practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;

(c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered "trafficking in persons" even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;

(d) "Child" shall mean any person under eighteen years of age.

Scope of the Problem

Worldwide, it is estimated that somewhere between 700,000 and four million women, children and men are trafficked each year, and no region is unaffected. 2

An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 women and children are trafficked into this country each year. 3

There have been reports of trafficking instances in at least 20 different states, with most cases occurring in New York, California, and Florida. Some Florida law enforcement officials, for example, claim that the state is being inundated with trafficked women from Russia, Ukraine, and Central Europe. INS and Labor Department officials fear that the problem is not only bigger than they thought but also getting worse. For example, INS has discovered 250 brothels in 26 different cities, which likely involved trafficking victims. 4

Globally:

UNICEF reports that across the world, there are over one million children entering the sex trade every year and that approximately 30 million children have lost their childhood through sexual exploitation over the past 30 years. 5

The U.S. Department of State estimates that about 600,000 to 800,000 people - mostly women and children - are trafficked across national borders annually. 6 [Note: This estimate does not include those trafficked within national borders.]

Eleven countries score very high as countries of origin for trafficking victims.  The countries are Belarus, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine (Commonwealth of Independent States), Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, China, Thailand, and Nigeria. 7