How To Help Stop
Child Trafficking

Children are increasingly vulnerable to forced labor, sexual slavery and other forms of exploitation

Now more than ever, children need protection from predatory criminals who turn the vulnerability and desperation of their victims into big business. Human trafficking — the buying and selling of people for exploitative purposes — thrives in times of conflict and crisis.

"Human trafficking has taken on horrific dimensions as armed groups and terrorists use it to spread fear and gain victims to offer as incentives to recruit new fighters," says Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC, citing child soldiers, forced labor and sexual slavery as examples.

Though it’s not clear how improvements in detection, recording and reporting methods have contributed to the rise, the conditions that put children at risk are clear. Turning war, political corruption, poverty and natural disasters to their advantage, traffickers are now generating approximately $39 billion annually on the exploitation of children alone.

According to the latest global estimates, over 150 million children are subjected to child labor with nearly half in hazardous forms of work. One in four victims of modern slavery are children and are mostly girls. 

Whether it is the trafficking of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, the exploitation of Central American migrants bound for the United States, the sexual enslavement of women and girls in Europe, or the forced labor of sub-Saharan Africans or refugees from the Middle East, 

What should you do if you suspect human trafficking?