A KNOWLEDGE CRISIS ABOUT A CRIME THAT SHAMES US ALL

THE TERM TRAFFICKING in persons can be misleading: it places emphasis on the transaction aspects of a crime that is more accurately described as enslavement. Exploitation of people, day after day. For years on end.

After much neglect and indifference, the world is waking up to the reality of a modem form of slavery. The public and the media are becoming aware that humans prey upon humans for money. Parliaments are passing appropriately severe laws. The judiciary is facing its anti-slavery responsibility, with more prosecutions and convictions. Civil society and (to a lesser extent) the private sector are mobilizing good-will and resources to assist victims.

Hearing this wake-up call, politicians as well as ordinary people ask me two sets of questions. First, they want to know how big the crime of human trafficking really is: how many victims are there? Who are the traffickers, what are their routes and their gains? What are the trends, namely is the problem getting ever more severe? Why and where?

Second, people want to know what to do, individually and collectively. Why aren't governments and the United Nations, why aren't we all, doing more? Some people are even willing to mobilize personal resources to fight this crime: but for whom and how?

The first set of questions needs to be answered as a matter of priority. Only by understanding the depth, breadth and scope of the problem can we address the second issue, namely, how to counter it. So far we have not attained much knowledge and therefore initiatives have been inadequate and disjointed. Policy can be effective if it is evidence-based, and so far the evidence has been scanty.

UNODC first attempted to identify human trafficking patterns in April 2006. This second report goes a step further, cataloguing and analysing the world's response, based on criminal justice and victim assistance data from 155 countries. A few observations stand out, in lieu of conclusions.

First, over the past few years, the number of countries that have taken steps to implement the foremost international agreement in this area — the UN Protocol against Trafficking in Persons — has doubled. However, there are still many countries, particularly in Africa, that lack the necessary legal instruments.