Файл: Vsemirny_doklad_o_torgovle_lyudmi_2015.pdf

22

GLOBAL REPOR

T ON

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS 

2014

AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

38 states out of the 66 UN Member States 

in the region

AMERICAS

29 states out of the 35 UN Member States 

in the region

EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA

43 states out of the 53 UN Member States 

in the region

SOUTH ASIA, EAST ASIA AND

THE P

ACIFIC

18 states out of the 39 UN Member States 

in the region

North Africa and 

the Middle East 

 (11 countries)

Sub-Saharan Africa 

(total: 27)

North and Central 

America and the 

Caribbean 

(total: 18)

South America 

(total: 11)

W

estern and  

Central Europe 

(total: 34)

Eastern Europe 

and Central Asia 

(total: 9)

East Asia and 

the Pacific 

(total: 12)

South Asia 

(6 countries)

Rwanda

United States of 

America

Lithuania

Senegal

Malta

Seychelles

Montenegr

o

Sierra Leone

Netherlands

South Africa

Norway

Swaziland

Poland

Togo

Portugal

Uganda

Romania

United Republic of 

Tanzania

Serbia

Zimbabwe

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

The former Y

ugo-

slav Republic of 

Macedonia

Turkey

United Kingdom of 

Gr

eat Britain and 

Norther

n Ir

eland

23

CHAPTER I 

GLOBAL OVERVIEW

In the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat 
Trafficking in Persons,

1

 Member States requested for the 

present report to focus on the patterns and flows of traf-
ficking in persons. ‘Patterns’ refer to the profiles of traf-
fickers and victims; that is, their citizenship, age and 
gender as well as the forms of exploitation. ‘Flows’ refer 
to the geographic dimension of trafficking, with a ‘flow’ 
defined as one origin country and one destination country 
with at least five detected victims during the 2010-2012 
reporting period.

2

A snapshot of the data shows that most of the offenders 
are men, while most of the detected victims are female 
(mainly women, but also a significant number of under-
age girls). Trafficking is a transnational crime that is often 
carried out domestically or within a given subregion, and 
most offenders are convicted in their countries of citizen-
ship. Victims, on the other hand, are often foreigners in 
the country where their exploitation was detected. Traf-
ficking flows are usually confined to a geographically lim-
ited area, either within a country or between neighbouring 
or relatively close countries.

That said, a greater proportion of women are convicted 
of trafficking in persons than of nearly any other crime, 
and the detection of male victims is increasing. Many 
countries convict a significant number of foreigners of 
trafficking in persons, and many victims are not trafficked 
abroad but exploited in their own countries. Although 
transregional trafficking is less common than the domestic 
or intraregional types, it still accounts for nearly a quarter 
of all trafficking flows. 

This chapter seeks to untangle some of this complexity. 
It will first present a global overview of patterns and flows, 
and then, a discussion on markets and organized crime as 
they relate to trafficking in persons. The chapter closes 
with an overview of the legislative and criminal justice 
responses to this crime across the world.

1 A/RES/64/293.

2 

This also includes flows where the country of origin and destination 
is the same, thus the case of domestic trafficking.

TRAFFICKERS

In order to understand the crime of trafficking in persons, 
it is crucial to know who the offenders are. Analysing the 
citizenship and gender of traffickers can help generate a 
broader understanding of the profiles of traffickers and 
their networks, as well as on how they operate. As traf-
ficking in persons is a crime that is often transnational, 
the question of traffickers’ citizenship is highly relevant, 
particularly when it comes to cross-border trafficking as 
there is often a citizenship link between traffickers and 
victims. Moreover, the issue of female involvement in traf-
ficking in persons is also pertinent. 

Information on the citizenship of persons convicted

3

 of 

trafficking in persons was provided by 64 countries, cov-
ering a total of 5,747 offenders. Information on the gender 
of suspected, prosecuted and/or convicted offenders was 
provided by 43, 59 and 64 countries respectively, cover-
ing 29,568 persons suspected, 4,915 persons convicted of 
and 10,024 persons prosecuted for trafficking in persons. 
The data covers the 2010-2012 period (or more recent).

Citizenship profiles of traffickers

The aggregated citizenship profiles of the people convicted 
of trafficking in persons show that most offenders are 
citizens of the country where they were convicted. This is 
true for more than 6 in 10 convicted traffickers globally. 
It is reasonable to expect that the majority of people con-
victed of nearly any crime would be citizens of the pros-
ecuting country. Even though international mobility is 
high, most people still live and operate mainly within their 
own countries. 

While the majority of offenders are citizens of the country 
where they were convicted, about 35 per cent of convicted 
traffickers are foreigners in those countries. This is a larger 

3  Including profile information on persons investigated for traffick-

ing, or on the citizenships of those prosecuted for trafficking (as is 
done for the gender profile) would have yielded more data. However, 
using citizenship information only on offenders convicted in the first 
instance is more solid and limits possible biases related to the poten-
tial targeting of particular citizenships within some criminal justice 
systems. 

GLOBAL REPOR

T ON

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS 

2014

24

Sciences Po - Atelier de cartographie, 2014

countries not covered

Share of foreign offenders

data not available

0

5

25

60

100

FIG. 1: 

Citizenship of convicted traffickers 
globally,

 2010-2012 (or more recent); 

shares of local and foreign nationals 
(relative to the country of conviction)

Source: UNODC elaboration on national data.

share of convicted foreigners than what is typically seen 
for most other crimes, for which foreign citizens generally 
comprise approximately 10 per cent of those convicted.

4

4  United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of 

Criminal Justice Systems (CTS), available at: http://www.unodc.org/
unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/data.html.

The high share of foreign involvement should not be sur-
prising considering the often transnational nature of this 
crime. As will be presented later in the Report, about two 
thirds of the human trafficking victims reported to 
UNODC over the 2010 – 2012 period were exploited in 
cases that involved at least one border crossing.

When foreign offenders are involved, they tend to come 
from countries that are relatively close, geographically, to 
the prosecuting country. Some 22 per cent of those con-
victed of trafficking in persons are foreigners from coun-
tries within the region where they were prosecuted, while 
14 per cent are citizens of countries in other regions. This 
means that in a given country in Asia, for example, it is 
reasonable to expect that most of the people convicted of 
trafficking in persons will be citizens of that country. The 
second largest group will be other Asians, and a relatively 
small share will be non-Asian foreigners. 

This distribution largely follows the breakdown of global 
trafficking flows, as long-distance (transregional) traffick-

NATIONALS

64%

FOREIGNERS FROM
OTHER REGIONS

14%

FOREIGNERS FROM COUNTRIES
IN THE SAME REGION

22%

MAP 1: 

Share of foreign offenders among the total number of persons convicted of trafficking 
in persons,

by country,

 2010-2012 

Source: UNODC.

Note: The boundaries shown on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations. Dashed lines represent undetermined 
boundaries. The dotted line represents approximately the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan. The final status of 
Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed upon by the parties. The final boundary between the Sudan and South Sudan has not yet been determined.

Global overview

I

25

Global overview

I

Origin or destination country?

In the context of discussing trafficking flows, the 
question of whether a given country is more of an 
origin or destination country is very relevant. 
Understanding whether a country ‘sends’ or ‘receives’ 
more trafficking victims is helpful for discerning 
transnational trafficking dynamics. It is not possi-
ble, however, to make a rigid distinction between 
origin and destination countries. As with any aggre-
gation, such a broad categorization runs the risk of 
obscuring important details and highlighting obser-
vations that may not be accurate at the micro level. 
Moreover, domestic trafficking, which is detected in 
most countries across the world, makes countries 
origins and destinations simultaneously. 

Even if only cross-border trafficking is considered, 
countries may belong to both categories. Indeed, 
most countries do, as they detect both outbound 
trafficking of own citizens and inbound trafficking 
of foreigners. Only a very few are exclusively origin 
or destination countries. For this reason, countries 
may be thought of as being more typical origin or 

more typical destination countries. While countries 
play both roles, the majority of the trafficking flows 
are either outbound (in the case of a more typical 
origin country) or inbound (more typical destina-
tion).

A more typical country of origin of cross-border 
trafficking may detect some foreign victims who are 
being exploited within its territory, but the out-
bound flow of that country’s citizens for exploita-
tion in other countries will be far larger.

Out of the 78 countries that provided information 
concerning the citizenship of the convicted offend-
ers, 37 were considered to be more typical origin 
countries of cross-border trafficking, whereas 41 
were considered more typical destination countries. 
While it should be kept in mind that the diverse 
national situations cannot be fully captured by such 
a broad categorization, when looking at the global 
level, classifying countries as more typical origin or 
destination countries of trafficking in persons is 
nonetheless very useful for trying to understand 
and describe typical cross-border trafficking flows.

their destination country by promising a reasonable salary 
and reassuring them that they would not be involved in 
prostitution, and then transported the victims across the 
borders to accomplices. Once in the destination country, 
the victims were exploited in prostitution against very 
little pay. In this scheme, the offenders received money 
from their partners to cover their costs. From the available 
information, it seems that the convicted men were ‘sub-
contracted’ to recruit and transport victims for a larger, 
foreign-based operation. This shows how convicted per-
sons reported as ‘local offenders’ may actually be involved 
in cross-border operations. 

Though there are some differences, the overall pattern of 
offender citizenships in the case of cross-border traffick-
ing holds true globally. But if a distinction is made 
between origin and destination countries for cross-border 
trafficking, the picture changes dramatically.

While countries that are more typically origin countries 
for cross-border trafficking convict mainly local citizens 
(about 95 per cent of all convictions), more typical des-
tination countries convict fewer own citizens than foreign-
ers of trafficking in persons (58 per cent foreigners, 42 
per cent locals). Foreign participation is therefore a key 

ing is much less frequently detected than domestic or 
subregional trafficking. However, it should be noted that 
the share of convicted own citizens among the total 
number of trafficking offenders is generally much higher 
than the share of domestic trafficking detected in a given 
country. This could imply that domestic trafficking - 
which happens within the borders of one country - is 
mainly organized by citizens of that country. 

But even so, local citizens are not only engaged in domes-
tic trafficking. Many of those who were convicted in their 
own countries during 2010 – 2012 were taking part in 
cross-border trafficking, be it subregional or transregional. 
Convicted local citizens could be involved in both domes-
tic and cross-border trafficking in some way, for example, 
as recruiters, transporters, guards or exploiters. 

The court cases submitted to UNODC by Member States

5

include an illustrative case from Latvia, where two Latvian 
men were convicted of trafficking Latvian women to a 
different country in Western Europe for sexual exploita-
tion. The offenders recruited the victims, deceived them 
regarding the working conditions they could expect in 

5  For more information on the court cases, please refer to the section 

on Methodology.

GLOBAL REPOR

T ON

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS 

2014

26

FIG. 3: 

Convictions of foreign citizens  
(relative to the convicting country) 
by countries of origin and destina-
tion of cross-border trafficking,

2010-2012

Source: UNODC elaboration on national data.

characteristic of cross-border trafficking in persons in des-
tination countries, but not in origin countries.

A qualitative analysis of the cross-border trafficking cases 
within the set of court cases shows that, while victims are 
normally recruited by local citizens in the victims’ own 
country (origin country), the traffickers who carry out the 
exploitation in the destination country may be either local 
citizens of these destination countries or foreigners. More-
over, as shown in the chart above, 58 per cent of traffickers 
in destination countries are not citizens of the country 
where they were convicted. Only 5 per cent of all the traf-
fickers convicted in origin countries are foreigners in these 
countries. While there is insufficient evidence to draw 
authoritative conclusions, on the base of the official data 
collected, it can be hypothesized that traffickers in desti-
nation countries are often able to recruit or maneuver local 
traffickers in origin countries. 

A closer look at only the foreign citizens convicted of traf-
ficking in persons shows that 95 per cent are convicted in 
destination countries. For local offenders, on the other 
hand, the distribution between origin countries and des-
tinations is relatively equal. In other words, national 
offenders convicted of trafficking in persons may be found 
in origin and destination countries in similar 
proportions.

These findings seem to indicate that while recruitments 
in origin countries are largely carried out by citizens of 
those countries, the exploitation schemes in destination 

countries are likely to involve more transnational 
operators. 

Many foreign traffickers also seem to frequently traffic 
victims from their own country of citizenship. This is 
confirmed by a clear statistical correlation between the 
citizenships of victims and offenders in selected destina-
tions of cross-border trafficking. Moreover, in the court 
cases, many of the case briefs indicated that the citizen-
ships of both trafficker(s) and victim(s) matched. This was 
particularly apparent when the offender was prosecuted 
in the destination country for the act of recruitment 

FIG. 2: 

Distribution of national and foreign 
offenders among countries of origin 
and destination of cross-border traf-
ficking,

 2010-2012

Source: UNODC elaboration on national data.

FIG. 4: 

Convictions of local citizens (relative 
to the convicting country) by coun-
tries of origin and destination of 
cross-border trafficking,

 2010-2012

Source: UNODC elaboration on national data.

95%

42%

5

%

58%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Countries of

 origin

Countries of

 destination

NATIONAL OFFENDERS

FOREIGN OFFENDERS

COUNTRIES OF
DESTINATION

95%

COUNTRIES OF
ORIGIN

5%

COUNTRIES OF
ORIGIN

60%

COUNTRIES OF
DESTINATION

40%