Traffickers
The trafficker is the link between supply and demand, on the one hand increasing supply
through the recruitment, deception, transportation and exploitation process and on the
other, boosting demand by providing easy access to ‘victims’. For both legal and practical
purposes, this includes everyone involved in the human trafficking chain from the point of
recruitment to the point of exploitation/use and re-use of labour or body parts. This includes
recruiters – by whatever means and whatever scale - as well as transporters, receivers, pimps
and brothel-keepers, corrupt border guards and producers of false documentation, all those
benefiting as the trafficked persons pass through their hands. In some instances friends and
family members of the victim of trafficking, or former trafficked persons play an active role
in the trafficking of human beings.