Traffickers are:  members of highly sophisticated networks of organized crime. Ukrainian officials uncovered and detained a criminal group in the city of Dnipropetrovsk, which trafficked Ukrainian girls and women to the United Arab Emirates. They made $2,000 on each girl forced into prostitution. This gang managed to traffic more than 15 Ukrainian young women aged between 16 and 30 to the United Arab Emirates.

Traffickers are: family members and friends of the trafficking victim. A six-year-old boy, Mohammad Mamun, was taken from his poor Bangladeshi parents by a neighbor, and ended up in a foreign desert land being exploited as a camel jockey. Mamun is one of hundreds of young Bangladeshi boys who are trafficked into the United Arab Emirates (UAE) either after being abducted or sold by impoverished parents to human traffickers.

Victims of trafficking are later used to traffic other women and children. Traffickers from Benin see themselves as helping the home community--facilitators for families looking for some extra income. One trafficker commented, "Every girl who travels and who doesn't get deported is a potential sponsor for more."

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
Any definition for trafficking should address three main questions.

1. What are the acts of trafficking?
2. What are the means of trafficking?
3. What are the purposes of trafficking?

An international definition of trafficking in persons was introduced in December of 2000. The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime provides the following definition:

"Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction or fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power of a position of vulnerability or of the giving of receiving of payment or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another persons, 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 labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

What are the acts of trafficking?

Recreuitment	Transportation
Transfer	Harboring
Receipt

According to the UN definition, the Protocol applies to the offenses of trafficking in persons "where those offenses are transnational in nature and involves an organized criminal group." The Protocol, therefore, is limited in scope to international trafficking. It does not apply to domestic trafficking, i.e. trafficking that takes place within national borders. However, trafficking is considered to be of a transnational nature not only if it is committed in more than one state, but also if a "substantial part of its preparation, planning, direction, or control takes place in another state," or if it "involves an organized criminal group that engages in criminal activities in more than one state," or if it "has (a) substantial effect in another state."

The Protocol is also limited to trafficking offenses, which involve an "organized criminal group." This is defined as "a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit."

Consequently, the Protocol does not apply to individual trafficking, nor does it apply to trafficking conducted by only two persons, although such trafficking may constitute a serious offense. However, it must be noted that the transnational of trafficking and the involvement of an organized criminal group are not requirements for the establishment of the offense of trafficking under the domestic law of a particular country.

What are the means of trafficking?

Threat	Abduction
Use of Force	Fraud
Other forms of Coercion	Deception
Position of Vulnerability	Abuse of Power
Receiving or Payment of Benefits

For the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons" to be considered trafficking in persons, the Protocol requires first that such acts be committed "by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, or fraud and deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person." 

Existence of any of these means renders consent either lacking altogether or defective.  In either case, it becomes "irrelevant." The Protocol, thus, draws a distinction between voluntary prostitution and forced prostitution, although it adopts a broad definition of what constitutes forced prostitution to include all cases of vulnerability where the person "has no real and acceptable alternative but (to) submit to the abuse involved." One may argue that economic hardship constitutes a form of coercion and a source of exploitation under this broad definition.

What are the purposes of trafficking?

Prostitution of Others	Other forms of Sexual Exploitation
Forced Labor or Services	Slavery or Practices Similar to Slavery
Servitude	Removal of Organs

Acts perpetuated through unlawful means, must be committed for the purpose of exploitation. The Protocol adopts a broad definition of exploitation to include "at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs." 

Moreover the Protocol addresses the exploitation of the prostitution of others and other forms of sexual exploitation "only in the context of trafficking in persons." The Protocol, therefore, avoids the issue of "how State Parties address prostitution in their respective domestic laws."

Early drafts of the Protocol made special references to specific forms of trafficking such as "forced marriage" or "marriage of convenience," "illegal adoption," "sex tourism," and "forced domestic labor." Inclusion of these specific forms of trafficking by the Protocol would have filled the gap in existing conventional law which does not adequately address the problems associated with them and does not address any in the context of trafficking.

Earlier drafts also addressed pornography as a form of sexual exploitation.

Click on the following links for more information:

Closer to Home - people trafficking occurs closer to where you live more often than you think.

Children are not Protected - children are vulnerable human beings.