Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them. As the only United Nations entity focusing on the criminal justice element of these crimes, the work that UNODC does to combat human trafficking is underpinned by the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime and its protocol on trafficking in persons. The protocol entered into force on the 25th of December 2003 and has 169 states parties. This level of consensus, combined with a growing understanding of the social and economic impact of human trafficking on sustainable development, drove the inclusion of human trafficking into the core of the current sustainable development agenda.
Agenda 2030 and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda have drawn a clear link between combatting the crime of human trafficking and sustainable development. The agenda has focussed attention on the impact of the lack of sustainable development on a crime which disproportionally affects poor countries and the vulnerable population groups within them – addressing cross cutting underlying factors of human trafficking (persistence of exploitation, transnational organised crime, weak rule of law and criminal justice systems, lack of economic opportunity and weak institutions) – as well as the means to combat it (strengthening domestic resource mobilisation, improved growth prospects and job creation, safeguarding remittance corridors, financial inclusion, strengthening access to justice, improving the protection of victim’s rights and improving the effectiveness of the criminal justice framework amongst many, many other factors.)
