Global assessments suggest that a substantial proportion of labour migrants ends up in situations of extreme exploitation, some of whom are identified as victims of human trafficking. Because large numbers of migrant workers fall into a “grey area” between trafficking (as defined by international and national law) and exploitative labour situations, there is good reason to explore the differences and similarities between the health needs of those who have been identified as trafficked compared to other migrants working in the same labour sector who have not. It is urgent to understand present-day occupational health and safety risks, forms of abuse and exploitation in different sectors and common hazardous working and living conditions to improve prevention and response strategies. This is among the first studies to explore and compare the influence of occupational and other risk exposures on people’s health and well-being and compare the experiences of migrant workers and victims of trafficking across sectors and regions. Our multiregion qualitative study on exploitation and harm experienced by individuals in the textile sector in Argentina, and artisanal gold-mining in Peru and construction sector in Kazakhstan, found important commonalities in the health hazards and financial, social and legal challenges across sectors and regions. In total, we interviewed 71 people; of these, 18 were formally identified victims of trafficking and 53 were migrant workers.

Background: Human trafficking is a crime that commonly results in acute and chronic physical and psychological harm. To foster more informed health sector responses to human trafficking, training sessions for health care providers were developed and pilot-tested in the Middle East, Central America, and the Caribbean. This study presents the results of an investigation into what health care providers knew and needed to know about human trafficking as part of that training program. Methods: Participants attended one of seven two-day training courses in Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Costa Rica, Egypt, El Salvador, Guyana, and Jordan. We assessed participants’ knowledge about human trafficking and opinions about appropriate responses in trafficking cases via questionnaires pre-training, and considered participant feedback about the training post-training. Results: 178 participants attended the trainings. Pre-training questionnaires were completed by 165 participants (93%) and post-training questionnaires by 156 participants (88%). Pre-training knowledge about health and human trafficking appeared generally high for topics such as the international nature of trafficking and the likelihood of poor mental health outcomes among survivors. However, many participants had misconceptions about the characteristics of trafficked persons and a provider’s role in responding to cases of trafficking. The most valued training components included the “Role of the Health Provider,” “Basic Definitions and Concepts,” and “Health Consequences of Trafficking.”

Las evaluaciones mundiales sugieren que una proporción sustancial de los trabajadores migrantes terminan en situaciones de explotación extrema, algunos de los cuales han sido identificados como víctimas de trata de personas. Debido a que un gran número de trabajadores migrantes caen en una "zona gris" entre la trata (como es definida por el derecho internacional y nacional) y situaciones de explotación laboral, hay una buena razón para explorar las diferencias y similitudes entre las necesidades de salud de aquellos que han sido identificados como víctimas de la trata en comparación con otros migrantes que trabajan en el mismo sector de trabajo que no lo han sido. Es urgente comprender los riesgos actuales para salud y la seguridad, las formas de abuso y explotación en los diferentes sectores y las condiciones de trabajo y de vida peligrosas comunes para mejorar las estrategias de prevención y respuesta. Este es uno de los primeros estudios que explora y compara la influencia de las exposiciones de riesgo ocupacionales, entre otros, en la salud y el bienestar de las personas, comparando las experiencias de los trabajadores migrantes y las víctimas de trata en todos los sectores y regiones que lo integran. Nuestro estudio cualitativo multi-región sobre la explotación y el daño sufrido por las personas en el sector textil en Argentina, en la extracción artesanal de oro en Perú y la construcción en Kazajstán, encontró similitudes importantes en los riesgos para la salud y los retos financieros, sociales y legales en todos los sectores y regiones. En total, se entrevistó a 71 personas; de éstos, 18 fueron identificados formalmente como víctimas de trata y 53 eran trabajadores migrantes.

Globally, Colombia is regarded as a major source and transit country for trafficking in persons in the Western Hemisphere. Colombia has several conditions as a country of origin for trafficking in persons namely due to the on-going internal armed conflict, which has exacerbated lawlessness, illicit trade, and the strong presence of international criminal gangs. Moreover, Colombia’s economy has suffered severely with high unemployment rates, lack of opportunities, and increasing poverty levels with an estimated 60-65 percent of Colombians to be living below the poverty line.During this period, thousands of communities have been displaced and become extremely vulnerable to trafficking. Such cultural factors may force persons to take high risks, often on a temporary basis, to achieve their goals; which, in return, increases their vulnerability to trafficking. In addition, social and familiar influences may negatively impact upon the individual again increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. These factors combined have fueled the trafficking in persons phenomenon in Colombia; making Colombia the third country most heavily affected by the trafficking in persons phenomenon in Latin American after Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

This desk review is conducted as part of the project entitled “Stop Trafficking Now!” being implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Special Liaison Mission in Addis Ababa, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Secretariat. The project is aimed at contributing to the efforts of the AUC, IGAD and East African Community (EAC) Member States to combat trafficking in persons, consistent with the “Ouagadougou Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings Especially Women and Children” (OAP) and the AUC Initiative against Trafficking (AU.COMMIT) campaign strategies to translate the Ouagadougou Action Plan into action. The OAP is a declaration of the will and joint intent of the African Union, the European Union and their Member States to enhance their efforts to fight human trafficking. It provides specific legal and political recommendations to be implemented by the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and Member States at sub-regional, continental and global levels. It further upholds and reinforces the international and regional legal instruments on human rights, particularly the conventions and protocols on trafficking in persons, elimination of discrimination against women and protection of the rights of the child. As part of the project “Stop Trafficking Now!” a desk review is undertaken on the countertrafficking efforts by IGAD Member States (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda), EAC Member States (Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda) as well as the IGAD and EAC secretariats within the framework of the OAP, the AU.COMMIT strategy document and the recently-developed implementation matrix. A comprehensive review report is thus prepared to be shared and discussed during the launching of the AU.COMMIT campaign in the IGAD and EAC sub-regions and at a sub-regional workshop on making the OAP operational, which is organized in Djibouti from 6–8 December 2010.

The Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) has been set up pursuant to Article 36 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (“the Convention”), which entered into force on 1 February 2008. GRETA is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Convention by the parties and for drawing up reports evaluating the measures taken by each party. GRETA is composed of 15 independent and impartial experts coming from a variety of backgrounds, who have been selected on the basis of their professional experience in the areas covered by the Convention. The term of office of GRETA members is four years, renewable once. GRETA’s country-by-country monitoring deals with all parties to the Convention on an equal footing.

Case records on identified victims of human trafficking are highly sensitive, yet the ability to share such data is critical to evidence-based practice and policy development across government, business, and civil society. We propose new methods to anonymize, publish, and explore data on identified victims of trafficking, implemented as a single pipeline producing three data artifacts: (1) synthetic microdata modelled on sensitive case records and released in their place, mitigating the privacy risk that traffickers might link distinctive combinations of attributes in published records to known victims; (2) aggregate data summarizing the precomputed frequencies of all short attribute combinations, mitigating the utility risk that synthetic data might misrepresent statistics needed for official reporting; and (3) visual analytics interfaces for parallel exploration and evaluation of synthetic data representations and sensitive data aggregates, mitigating the accessibility risk that privacy mechanisms or analysis tools might not be understandable or usable by all stakeholders. Central to our mitigation of these risks is the notion of k-synthetic data, which we generate through a distributed machine learning pipeline. k-synthetic data preserves privacy by ensuring that longer combinations of attributes are not rare in the sensitive dataset and thus potentially identifying; it preserves utility by ensuring that shorter combinations of attributes are both present and frequent in the sensitive dataset; and it improves accessibility by being easy to explain and apply. We present our work as a design study motivated by the goal of creating a new privacy-preserving data platform for the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC), transforming how the world's largest database of identified victims is made available for global collaboration against human trafficking.

This publication considers various approaches for measuring rates of human trafficking and how they have been applied in various national contexts. It also presents how different methodologies are needed to address specific regional problems and trends.

The manual goes through, step by step, various aspects of human trafficking data, whether that be data collection methodology, data collection processes, or procedures for reporting. This manual also helps educate readers on the levels of skill, training and sensitivity needed to complete this work in the best way possible.

This report presents the comparative findings of research spanning two years on migrants caught in situations of crisis in a destination country. The research focused on the longer-term socio-economic impacts of these crises on migrants, on their families and on the countries affected by the crisis. It was conducted by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), the University of Oxford’s International Migration Institute (IMI) and local research partners in the fieldwork countries, in the context of the larger European Union (EU)-funded project “Migrants in Countries in Crisis: Supporting an Evidence-based Approach for Effective and Cooperative State Action” (MICIC).That EU-funded project aims to improve the capacity of states and other stakeholders to assist and provide protection to migrants who find themselves in countries affected by crisis – through in-depth research, consultations with government and other relevant stakeholders and capacity building. With this three-pronged approach, the project contributes to the global MICIC Initiative, a government-led process co-chaired by the governments of the Philippines and the United States. Based on the inputs of states, civil society, international organisations and private sector stakeholders on both the project and the initiative, the MICIC Initiative released its “Guidelines to Protect Migrants in Countries Experiencing Conflict or Natural Disaster”, to help states and other stakeholders respond to the needs of migrants caught in crisis situations. The empirical research described in this report confirms many of the issues raised and policy priorities recommended in these guidelines.