(Source: Anti-Slavery International)
Trafficking involves transporting people away from the communities in which they live and forcing them to work against their will using violence, deception or coercion.
When children are trafficked, no violence, deception or coercion needs to be involved: simply transporting them into exploitative conditions constitutes trafficking.
People are trafficked both between countries and within the borders of a state.
How is exploitation of workers in the UK being addressed?
How big is the problem?
Trafficking affects countries and families on every continent. Because of its hidden nature, it is difficult to get accurate statistics on the numbers affected, but the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that at any one time there are some 2.5 million people who have been trafficked and are being subjected to sexual or labour exploitation.
Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims.
Are only women trafficked?
Trafficking for sexual exploitation almost exclusively affects women and girls (98 per cent), but trafficking for labour exploitation also affects women more than men (56 per cent being women and girls).
How does trafficking work?
The vast majority or people who are trafficked are migrant workers. They are seeking to escape poverty and discrimination, improve their lives and send money back to their families.
They hear about well-paying jobs abroad through family, friends or "recruitment agencies". But when they arrive in the country of destination they find that the work they were promised does not exist and they are forced instead to work in jobs or conditions to which they did not agree.
Is it happening in the UK?
Government research shows that there are an estimated 4,000 victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation in the UK at any one time.
Anti-Slavery International estimates that over a thousand men, women and children are trafficked for the purpose of forced labour at any one time.
Trafficking is documented across several major industries including agriculture, construction, food processing and packaging, nursing, hospitality, domestic work and the restaurant trade.
How is exploitation of workers in the UK being addressed?
The Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) regulates those who supply labour or use workers to provide services in agriculture, forestry, horticulture, shellfish gathering and food processing and packaging.
See Anti-Slavery International for more information.