Trafficking in persons: Who is most at risk?

No community, whether affluent or impoverished, is immune to the crime of human trafficking. Victims of trafficking can be of any age, gender and from anywhere in the world. There is no single profile for trafficking victims; it occurs to adults and minors in rural, suburban, or in urban communities. Traffickers target victims using tailored methods of recruitment they find effective. Vulnerable populations who have little social or legal protection are the most at risk.

Globally, one in every three victims detected is a child. Countries in West Africa, South Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean, present a much higher share of children among total victims detected. The detection of children accounts for a significantly higher proportion in developing countries. Wealthier countries tend to detect more adults than children among trafficking victims.

Main types of exploitation

Forced labor

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the African continent records the largest prevalence of children (between 5 and 17 years of age) in labour. The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) estimates confirm this geographical pattern. Some countries in West Africa are estimated to have more than 40 per cent of the total population aged between 5 and 17, engaged in child labor.

Types of forced labor include debt bondage, domestic servitude, forced child labor, and unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers. The International Labor Organization estimates that 16 million victims of forced labor work in the private sector, and 4 million are in state sanctioned forced labor.

Sex Trafficking 

Sex trafficking refers to when an individual is transported from one location to another for the purpose of commercial sex, either by act of force, fraud, or coercion. If the individual is under the age of eighteen, any commercial sex act is considered trafficking even if there is no force, fraud, or coercion. 

Child victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation (mainly girls) are identified in every part of the world, but largely concentrated in Central America and the Caribbean and East Asia. According to the ILO, 4.8 million individuals are exploited for sex, 3.8 million adults and 1 million children. Women and children are the most common victims found to be trafficked for sex, but men and boys are also trafficked for sex.

Trafficking in sports

Sporting activities have proven to be very susceptible to the sale and exploitation of persons, especially children. Young athletes, especially footballers from Africa and other developing parts of the world seeking economic emancipation through sports, are often victims of rogue agents who connive with certain other elements, to make promises of greener pastures and potentially explosive careers to these young athletes who dream of having careers like their role models. 

Oftentimes, entire families have been known to contribute funding to facilitate such movements, believing that this way, they help one person succeed as a means of helping the entire family in the long run, when the young athlete becomes successful and in a capacity to send down money earned in stronger currency forms.  

In truth however, these mostly child athletes are sold to clubs in developed or perceivably developed nations  for profit. These young players pay these agents or intermediaries purporting to have contacts with professional clubs abroad, to obtain a contract or the opportunity to trial with a club, in arrangements that involve degrees of exploitation that only become clear to the victim upon arrival, far away from family and familiar surroundings, and subject to the terms of slavish contracts and arrangements. 

This has been described as a new form of child slavery that leaves players in a precarious legal position. While there is a growing body of literature on trafficking in sports, there is still a sufficient lack of data on this problem. However, it remains true that the chase for opportunities from a position of economic vulnerability, remains the major reason for sports trafficking to thrive despite efforts to combat the scourge, as victims continue to surge towards these agents in the hopes of breakthrough, oftentimes, even despite advice to the contrary.