New research by academics has revealed a more accurate estimate of those trafficked across the world, from 49.6million to 65.3million, with urgent action needed to prevent this criminal exploitation and coercion.

The report by Professor Sylvia Walby, from the Department of Law and Criminology, Royal Holloway, University of London and Professor Brian Francis, from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Lancaster University, also shows the estimated global proportion of trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation actually stands at 56% compared to the current estimate of 27%, and that the proportion who are female is 64% rather than 54%.

This is more than twice the current International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free and International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimate of trafficking for sexual exploitation globally.

The improved estimate was assembled by integrating data from ILO, Walk Free and the United Nations Organization on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), rather than from the Counter Trafficking Global Data Collaborative (CTDC).

The inclusion of trafficking (also known as modern slavery) in the UN Sustainable Development Goals illustrates the importance of this issue.

The harms produced by human trafficking are severe and long-lasting, so producing accurate estimates of the amount and distribution of trafficking in human beings/modern slavery matters, since this data influences priorities over diverse public and social policies.

The report’s improved global estimate of the amount of trafficking in human beings/modern slavery has implications for prevention and for the provision of services to mitigate harm.

The paper develops the data for the UN indicator of ‘the estimated number of victims of human trafficking per 100,000 population, by sex, age, and form of exploitation.’

Professor Sylvia Walby from Royal Holloway, said: “The collection of better data on the extent and distribution of human trafficking is needed to provide a more reliable evidence base to support policy change.

“This includes the need for greater provision of resources to address the support needs of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation who are disproportionately female.

“Our report on the statistics on trafficking in human beings/modern slavery makes for very sombre reading and we want to work with policy makers to use this updated data to strengthen systems across the world to prevent this coercion and exploitation.

“There are many ways to help people, including changes to the way that temporary working visas can tie migrants to employers, which make it hard to escape abuse.

“The report will help to guide policy and law enforcement priorities.”

Professor Brian Francis, Lancaster University, added: “The administrative CTDC data used in the old estimate lacks stability over time, and underestimates substantially those trafficked for sexual exploitation.

“We demonstrate that the UNODC data used by us provides stability over time over a larger number of counties, leading to a better picture of global trafficking.”

After a long period of international cooperation that has been developing legal definitions (ILO, 1930; UN, 1956), trafficking in human beings was defined as a transnational crime by the UN in 2000, an EU-level crime by the EU Directive in 2011 and a crime of modern slavery by the UK in 2015.

Trafficking/modern slavery is defined as the exploitation of the vulnerability of others, with the use of coercion to extract profit from labour, the sex trade, and body parts.

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-024-03474-w