INTRODUCTION
Human trafficking is generally understood to refer to the process through
which individuals are placed or maintained in an exploitative situation for
economic gain. Trafficking can occur within a country or may involve movement
across borders. Women, men and children are trafficked for a range
of purposes, including forced and exploitative labour in factories, farms and
private households, sexual exploitation, and forced marriage. Trafficking affects
all regions and most countries of the world.
While it is difficult to secure reliable information about patterns and numbers,
our understanding about why trafficking happens has improved. Inequalities
within and between countries, increasingly restrictive immigration policies and
growing demand for cheap, disempowered labour are just some of the underlying
causes that have been identified. The many factors that increase individual
vulnerability to trafficking include poverty, violence and discrimination.
The exploitation of individuals for profit has a long history and international efforts
to address it can be traced back at least a century, well before the birth of the
modern human rights system. However, it is only over the past decade that trafficking
has become a major concern. During that same period, a comprehensive
legal framework has developed around the issue. These changes confirm that
a fundamental shift has taken place in how the international community thinks
about human exploitation. It also confirms a change in expectations of what
Governments and others should be doing to deal with trafficking and to prevent
it. Hence, the victim-centred approach is also gathering increased support from
the international community. Human rights form a central plank of the new understanding
and there is now widespread acceptance of the need for a human
rights-based approach to trafficking. As explained further in this Fact Sheet, such
an approach requires understanding of the ways in which human rights violations
arise throughout the trafficking cycle and of the ways in which States’ obligations
under international human rights law are engaged. It seeks to both identify and
redress the discriminatory practices and unequal distribution of power that underlie
trafficking, that maintain impunity for traffickers and that deny justice to victims.
This Fact Sheet seeks to provide a brief but comprehensive overview of
human rights and human trafficking. In exploring the applicable legal and
policy framework, it draws on two major outputs of the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): the 2002 Recommended
Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking
and its extensive Commentary.