While some victims – male and female – are actually sold to traffickers by relatives or “friends”, most human trafficking occurs during the course of voluntary but ill-prepared and uninformed migration.

Often naive and under-educated, many children and young women are tempted to leave their rural villages in search of work. Some are looking to escape poverty or abusive relationships. Others are simply searching for adventure in the big city and a new start in life.

Using coercion, deception (like the promise of a fictional job), and sometimes violence, or the threat of violence, the trafficker diverts the young migrant into prostitution, forced labour and/or other slave-like conditions, including domestic servitude.

Alone and frightened, and often unable to speak the local language, many children and young women can find themselves in another country far from home – sold into the custody of a merciless brothel owner or working as a virtual prisoner in a factory or home with little or no wages.

Photo: ILO/Nick Rain
Photo taken with informed consent.