ARTICLE - CHILD TRAFFICKING - INCREASES

CHILD TRAFFICKING, LABOUR ON THE RISE - IOM
(Qatar News Agency – QNA)

New York – The President of the 66th United Nations General Assembly, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, has called on Member States, civil society, the private sector and the media to step up efforts to bring an end to human trafficking, calling it “an appalling form of human rights abuse”.

“Human trafficking denies individuals their dignity, reducing them to mere objects by shamelessly exploiting them,” he said.

Al-Nasser was speaking at the United Nations Headquarters in New York during an interactive dialogue on human trafficking organized by UNODC and the Group of Friends United Against Human Trafficking, (which comprises 21 Member States) as a follow up to the 2007 Conference on Trafficking in Women and Girls.

One of the most lucrative forms of organized crime, human trafficking generates $32 billion annually, rivalling the profits reaped by the illicit trade in arms and drugs. According to UNODC data, women comprise two thirds of trafficking victims. At any given time, an estimated 2.4 million people are trapped in human trafficking.

In Geneva, Child victims of human trafficking helped by the International Organization of Migration (IOM) increased to 2,040 in 2011, up 27% from 1,565 in 2008, according to new data released Wednesday.

“It shows that the number of adult victims referred to 89 IOM missions in 91countries during the same period rose 13% to 3,404 from 3,012,” said the IOM in its report.

The top ten countries of destination for human trafficking victims helped by IOM in 2011 were:

1. Russian Federation(837)
2. Haiti (658)
3. Yemen (552)
4. Thailand (449)
5. Kazakhstan (265)
6. Afghanistan (170)
7. Indonesia (148)
8. Poland (122)
9. Egypt (103)
10. Turkey (101)

The top ten countries of origin for victims were:

1. Ukraine (235),
2. Haiti (709),
3. Yemen (378),
4. Laos (359),
5. Uzbekistan (292),
6. Cambodia (258),
7. Kyrgyzstan (213),
8. Afghanistan (179),
9. Belarus (141)
10. Ethiopia (122)

While the number of female victims remained stable at 3,415, compared to 3,404 in 2008, the number of male victims rose 27 percent to 2,040 from 1,656, reflecting growing public recognition of the trafficking of men for the purpose of labour exploitation.

Labour trafficking cases rose 43% to 2,906, up from 2,031 in 2008. In contrast, cases of trafficking for sexual exploitation dropped 19% to 1,507 from 1,866 four years earlier.

International trafficking cases fell 13% to 3,531 in 2011, down from 4,066 in 2008. But domestic cases shot up 140% from 713 in 2008 to 1,708 last year.