The economic, geographic, and cultural diversity of Asia and the Pacific region is reflected in the varying prevalence and forms of modern slavery found across the region. In Asia and the Pacific, there are instances of debt bondage, including hereditary forms of bonded labour in South Asia, forced labour exists in migrant dominated sectors across the region, forced marriage persists, and state-imposed forced labour, while most commonly known to exist in North Korea, occurs in several countries within the region. The Asia and Pacific region is home to the two most populous countries in the world, India and China, as well as some of the least populous island nations, among them Tuvalu, Nauru and Palau.

While no government has a fully comprehensive response to modern slavery, all countries in the Europe and Central Asia region have either mantained or improved their response since the publication of the 2016 Global Slavery Index. Most notably, the Netherlands has retained its position as having the world's strongest response to modern slavery, taking the most steps of any nation to address the problem and, for the second consecutive time, being the only country anywhere to receive an "A" rating. The Netherlands national response is strong across indicators of victim support, criminal justice responses, and addressing risk, including society safety nets and protection for migrants, a feature missing in many countries of destination. Netherlands was closely followed by the United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Croatia, Spain, Norway, and Portugal, all of which took significant action against modern slavery in the previous two years.

At the UN level, progress towards the SDGs is measured by a global indicator framework and Voluntary National Reviews, where governments report on their own activities against these indicators. This approach is hampered, however, by the lack of indicators on all forms of moden slavery under SDG 8.7, as well as the voluntary nature of this reporting. Without clear indicators to measure progress toward the 2030 goal, governments are not able to report systematically and consistently, nor can they be held to account. In the absence of official indicators, this report, Measurement, Action, Freedom, provides an independent assessment of 183 governments and their responses to the challenge of modern slavery. In it, governments are assessed against their ability to identify and support survivors, to establish effective criminal justice systems, to strengthen coordination mechanisms and be held to account, to address underlying risk factors, and to clean up government and business supply chains, all in order to eradicate modern slavery. The findings shine a light on those taking strong action, identify those that are lagging, and highlight the activities that should be prioritised.

While United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations (PKOs) are generally considered to reduce the likelihood of civil war recurrence, attention in recent years has shifted to understanding the dynamics unique to post-Cold War peacekeeping, including the changing makeup and mandate of PKOs, and associated patterns of peacekeeper misconduct. While several studies of misconduct emphasize peacekeepers’ implication in sexual exploitation and abuse of host country citizens, this study goes the next step by assessing peacekeeping’s relationship to human trafficking more broadly—a perennial concern in post-conflict states. Though UN PKOs are not always directly responsible for increases in human trafficking in mission host countries, this paper considers how the attributes of UN peacekeeping missions may create the conditions where trafficking is likely to flourish or flounder.

This article addresses sex trafficking committed by the terrorist group Da’esh in the Syrian Arab Republic and its neighboring Republic of Iraq. It proposes primarily that sex trafficking perpetrated by Da’esh falls into at least two unique categories of trafficking — “combat trafficking” and “institutional trafficking” — that require markedly different legal responses in order to ensure accountability and justice. The article outlines the divergent factual patterns and characteristics of each form of trafficking, exploring how “combat trafficking” occurs through the active invasion of territory, whereby Da’esh forcibly captures women and girls and subjects them to sexual slavery, and how “institutional trafficking” occurs outside the active conflict, whereby Da’esh recruits women and girls to join the group and subjects them to forced marriage and domestic servitude. It discusses how institutional trafficking has been largely overlooked in discussions of accountability for Da'esh's trafficking crimes. This article then argues for accountability for institutional trafficking under the international system of Transnational Criminal Law (“TCL”). It delineates how the crime of trafficking has been interpreted and defined to date within this system and how that definition applies to Da’esh’s acts of institutional trafficking. It explains how TCL is best suited to addressing this form of trafficking. The article then argues that full accountability for perpetrators of this form of trafficking is two-fold, requiring recognition of the crime and enforcement of the criminalization of it.

Trafficking in human beings (THB), as a transnational crime, involves movement of people across borders. In this regard, border control authorities are expected to play an important role in preventing and curbing this phenomenon. Border guards are identified as key actors in fight against trafficking in human beings both in the new Directive 2011/36/EU and the associated EU Strategy towards the Eradication of Trafficking in Human Beings. The role of border guards in combating trafficking, is largely seen as in the role of “first responder” as part of the National Referral Mechanisms in identification of victims of trafficking, as well as for the identification and apprehension of traffickers within border control procedures. The growing commitment on the EU policy level for prevention of, and fighting against, trafficking of human beings, has also led to recognition of the issue as an important priority to border control authorities of all Member States as well. The European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (FRONTEX) has already recognised THB as one of its priorities and has developed a training manual for border guards related to THB and a handbook for Border Control Authorities on good practices to counter THB. This paper Human Trafficking, Border Security and Related Corruption in the EU, by Atanas Rusev of the Center for Study of Democracy in Bulgaria, investigates the much under-researched aspect of corruption and human trafficking. Rusev explores this topic vis-à -vis border authorities and connected corruption to facilitate, inter alia, THB and how this corruption can be related to the corporate sector and enter into the highest political spheres

Human trafficking is a form of serious exploitation and abuse that is increasingly present in the UN peacekeeping environments. Trafficking exploits human beings for revenue through sex, forced labour and human organs. For peacekeeping (UN and other) there is a crisis of perception in relation to trafficking and the linked issue of sexual exploitation and abuse, which sees peacekeepers branded as more part of the problem than the solution, along with criticisms that the issue is not taken seriously by peacekeeping institutions. Allegations and incidences of peacekeeper involvement with trafficking run counter to UN principles. Such incidents can be extremely damaging to missions by undermining implementation of police reform and rule of law mandates, perpetuating linkages to organized crime and providing material for anti-UN elements, obstructionists and negative media campaigns.

The 2018 Global Slavery Index measures the extent of modern slavery country by country, and the steps governments are taking to respond to this issue, to objectively measure progress toward ending modern slavery. The Index draws together findings from across estimates of prevalence, measurement of vulnerability, and assessment of government responses, alongside an analysis of trade flows and data on specific products. When considered as a set, the data provide a complex and insightful picture of the ways modern slavery is impacting countries around the world. This enables us to refine our thinking on how to better respond to modern slavery, and also how to predict and prevent modern slavery in future.

While no government has a fully comprehensive response to modern slavery, all countries in the Americas region have either mantained or improved their response. Most notably, the United States has retained its position as demonstrating the strongest response to modern slavery in the region, and the strongest response globally to prevent governments and business from sourcing goods and services linked to modern slavery. The United States is joined by Argentina and Chile, both of wich have made improvements that result in the highest government response ratings in the Americas region of "BBB". Other countries that have improved their response to modern slavery this year include Peru, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama and Bolivia.

This paper shows how human trafficking for criminal exploitation can occur in environments of armed conflict in which adults and even children are recruited to fight. It proposes that these people’s status as victims should be taken into account when determining the degree of their criminal responsibility within the framework of a transitional justice process such as the one applied in Colombia under the 2005 Justice and Peace Act (Ley de Justicia y Paz). In order to prove that some victims of human trafficking exploited in the Colombian armed conflict have not been duly identified as such, it presents the main results of a qualitative study carried out with 20 women inmates in Colombian prisons who were members of guerrilla groups and were demobilised under the terms of the Justice and Peace Act. The study shows how the life stories narrated by 16 of these women make it possible to identify them as victims of trafficking for criminal exploitation even though they have not been classified as such. In 80% of the analysed cases, the women suffered episodes of victimisation that led them to join and remain in the armed group, often against their will. These episodes involved the use of means to recruit them and to force them to stay active in the group that show they underwent a genuine process of human trafficking.