Most child trafficking victims trafficked domestically: Report

Child trafficking remains a significant issue worldwide, with more than half of the victims being trafficked within their own country, according to a new report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University (FXB).

Child victims trafficked for sexual exploitation were commonly trafficked internationally, while those trafficked for forced labour were more likely to be trafficked domestically, found the report titled From Evidence to Action: Twenty Years of IOM Child Trafficking Data to Inform Policy and Programming.

"The report shows that child trafficking is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon that continues to spread and evolve within and across borders. No age range, no gender, and no nationality is immune to child trafficking; it is a truly global phenomenon," Irina Todorova, Head of IOM's Core Protection Unit says. 

The report highlights that nearly half the children, mostly boys, were being trafficked for forced labour in various industries, while 20%, predominantly girls, were trafficked for sexual exploitation.

"Child victims originating from South-East Asia and the Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin American and the Caribbean were, in the majority of cases, trafficked for forced labour, 62.6%, 57.5% and 79.4%, respectively," it records.

"Boys were almost twice as likely to be trafficked as children than girls and had 39% less likelihood of being trafficked internationally than domestically, as compared to girls," reports an IOM article citing the report.

It also says that children without high school education were 20 times and children from low-income countries were five times more likely to be trafficked.

"It has never been more urgent to scale up our efforts and ensure that eliminating trafficking in persons remains an international priority, with responses tailored to the context of each country, and to the complex intersection of individual, community and societal factors affecting children," urges Monica Goracci, director of IOM's Department of Programme Support and Migration Management. 

The report was the result of an extensive analysis of data collected from approximately 69,000 victims of human trafficking of 156 nationalities, trafficked in 186 countries.