What is trafficking?

Trafficking is at the heart of much of the slavery in the UK today. As the term has already been used many times on our website, let’s define it.

In the context of Freedom Trust, when we talk about trafficking we mean the moving of people for the purpose of exploiting them.

Trafficking is not always the same as illegal migration. In some cases trafficking might involve the legitimate entry of people into a country, but it becomes trafficking when it is carried out by others in order to exploit the migrants. Trafficking involves one or more of force, deception, or coercion. The victim of trafficking might have been a willing party at some stage, before they were aware of the deception involved.

Trafficking is usually across international borders but might also occur within borders.

The United Nations’ International Labour Organization believes that up to 1.2 million children – both boys and girls – are trafficked each year into exploitative work in agriculture, mining, factories, armed conflict, or commercial sex work.

“Trafficking in persons” is defined by the United Nations as:

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

Source: United Nations PROTOCOL TO PREVENT, SUPPRESS AND PUNISH TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, ESPECIALLY WOMEN
AND CHILDREN, SUPPLEMENTING THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME

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