Making Women’s Safety a Priority - Addressing the Increased Vulnerability of Women to Human Trafficking in Times of Unrest

The report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime entitled “Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns” of April 2006 pays close attention to the vulnerability of women and girls to human trafficking: women represent 77% of victims, of which 48% are girls, and both are highly vulnerable to trafficking for sexual exploitation purposes.  

Human trafficking being a transnational issue as well as a clandestine activity, data and statistics at all scales are likely to be elusive and even unreliable for a variety of reasons, which include differences in legislation and their enforcement, lack of institutions in charge of collecting such data, and unknowingly mixing data related to human trafficking, migrant-smuggling and irregular migration. This results in underestimations of the prevalence of human trafficking, especially regarding internal trafficking.  

Nonobstant, it is important to keep in mind that although certain countries might be more affected by this phenomenon than others, most if not all countries around the globe are involved in human trafficking, whether as countries of origin, transit or destination of trafficking victims.

Human trafficking is not often considered a variable that requires immediate or necessary attention by actors involved in catastrophe prevention, response, and recovery because of the complicated environment that surrounds emergency events, and is therefore disregarded and not addressed with the care and urgency it requires.

 

It is important to consider the battle against human trafficking in emergency situations in terms of providing "immediate assistance to save lives". In order to provide the complete protection of those who are vulnerable, trafficking needs to be treated with the same urgency as any other emergency reaction.