On the occasion of World Day against Trafficking in Persons (30/07), new data released by IOM, the UN Migration Agency, show that in the last ten years, almost 80 per cent of journeys undertaken by victims trafficked internationally cross through official border points, such as airports and land border control points.

The crime of human trafficking is complex, dynamic, and clandestine, taking place in a wide variety of contexts and often perpetrated by organized criminal networks. ”IOM’s work to combat human trafficking requires intense and sustainable cooperation with a wide range of partners”, said Sacha Chan Kam, senior specialist in Migration and Protection at IOM’s Vienna Regional Office. “Of particular importance is leveraging IOM data to end human trafficking. Indeed, one of the greatest challenges in developing targeted counter-trafficking responses and measuring their impact is the lack of reliable high quality data“

IOM’s figures are based on case management data from the last 10 years, involving about 10,500 journeys undertaken by nearly 8,000 victims. The data are hosted on the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC), which is the world’s first data portal to include human trafficking case data contributed by multiple agencies. Launched in 2017, the CTDC currently includes case records of over 80,000 trafficked persons from 171 countries who were exploited in 170 countries.

Women are more likely to be trafficked through an official border point than men (84 per cent of cases, versus 73 per cent for men). Adults are also more likely to be trafficked across official border points than children (80 per cent of cases, versus 56 per cent for children).

Victims are exploited at some point during their journey in two thirds of cases, meaning that they are likely to cross official borders having already experienced some form of exploitation, while one third may still be unaware that they are being trafficked and may believe they are taking up new opportunities abroad.