Indicator: 16.2.2
0.a. Goal
Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
0.b. Target
Target 16.2: End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children
0.c. Indicator
Indicator 16.2.2: Number of victims of human trafficking per 100,000 population, by sex, age and form of exploitation
0.d. Series
Applies to all series
0.e. Metadata update
2023-03-310.f. Related indicators
Indicator 5.2.1: Proportion of ever-partnered women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to physical, sexual or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by form of violence and by age
Indicator 5.2.2: Proportion of women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to sexual violence by persons other than an intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by age and place of occurrence
0.g. International organisations(s) responsible for global monitoring
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
1.a. Organisation
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
2.a. Definition and concepts
Definition:
The indicator is defined as the ratio between the total number of victims of trafficking in persons in a country and the population resident in that country, expressed per 100,000 population.
According to Article 3, paragraph (a) of the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, trafficking in persons is defined as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs”.
Article 3, (b) states “the consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used”;
Article 3, (c) states “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered trafficking in persons even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a);"
Concepts:
According to the definition given in the Trafficking in Persons Protocol, trafficking in persons has three constituent elements; The Act (Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons), the Means
(Threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits to a person in control over another person) and the Purpose (at minimum exploiting the prostitution of others, sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery or similar practices and the removal of organs).
The definition implies that the exploitation does not need to be in place, as the intention by traffickers to exploit the victim is sufficient to define a trafficking offence. Furthermore, the list of exploitative forms is not limited, which means that other forms of exploitation may emerge and they could be considered to represent additional forms of trafficking offences.
2.b. Unit of measure
Number of persons per 100,000 population
2.c. Classifications
International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes, ICCS 2015
3.a. Data sources
The data are sourced from the designated authorities for the identification of victims of trafficking, including law enforcement, criminal justice system, and National Referral Mechanisms (NRMs) when available.
3.b. Data collection method
Data are collected by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) from national authorities with the annual Questionnaire for the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (GLOTIP). National focal points working in national agencies responsible for trafficking in persons, statistics on crime and/or the criminal justice system and nominated by the Permanent Mission to UNODC are responsible for compiling the data from the other relevant agencies before transmitting the GLOTIP questionnaire to UNODC. Following the submission, UNODC checks the data for consistency and coherence with other data sources. Member States that are also part of the European Union or the European Free Trade Association, or candidate or potential candidate to the European Union channel their responses through Eurostat. Data submitted by Member States through other means or taken from other sources, namely official websites of national authorities or governments’ reports are added to the dataset after review by Member States.
3.c. Data collection calendar
Data collection is conducted every year, starting in the second quarter.
3.d. Data release calendar
The data are published on a biennual basis on the UNODC data portal.
3.e. Data providers
National focal points working in national agencies responsible for trafficking in persons, statistics on crime and/or the criminal justice system and nominated by the Permanent Mission to UNODC are responsible for compiling the data from the other relevant agencies before transmitting the GLOTIP questionnaire to UNODC.
3.f. Data compilers
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
3.g. Institutional mandate
In 2010, the General Assembly mandated UNODC to “collect information and report biennially …on patterns and flows of trafficking in persons at the national, regional and international levels.” (Para 60, A/RES/64/293 – United Nations Global Plan of Action against Trafficking in Persons).
4.a. Rationale
Trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights. Every day, victims are exploited in restaurants, farms, construction sites, brothels, factories, markets, mines and in people’s homes everywhere, but little is known about the prevalence and characteristics of the crime. Better data is needed to inform more effective responses, and provide policymakers and practitioners with the information and analysis they need to sharpen anti-trafficking action and improve prevention.
This indicator aims to measure the prevalence of trafficking in persons according to the victims profile and the forms of exploitation, and to track global, regional, and national progress in combatting this crime.
4.b. Comment and limitations
The total number of victims of trafficking in persons is defined as the total number of victims officially detected by national authorities plus the number of undetected victims of trafficking.
Unfortunately, as data on the number of undetected victims is available only for a very limited number of countries and is not regularly monitored, the current computation of the indicator 16.2.2. only focuses on the number of detected victims of trafficking. The count of detected victims of trafficking has the benefit of referring to victims as defined by the UN Protocol, where the act, the mean and the purpose of trafficking have been identified by the national authorities. While information on detected victims can provide valuable information to monitor sex and age profile of detected victims, as well as on forms of exploitation, and trafficking flows, the number of detected victims per se does not monitor the level of trafficking of persons. Interpretation of trends should be done with caution, as changes in detected victims of trafficking can be due to multiple factors such as changes of law enforcement practices, changes in legislation, or changes in trafficking severity or patterns. A decrease over time in a given country may not necessarily reflect a reduced incidence of the crime, but rather a change in detection patterns that may be due to a number of underlying reasons. No clear target can be defined for this indicator until data availability will allow for the inclusion of undetected victims of trafficking.
4.c. Method of computation
The numerator of this indicator is composed of two parts: detected and undetected victims of trafficking in persons. The detected part of trafficking victims, as resulting from investigation and prosecution activities of criminal justice system, is counted and reported by national law enforcement authorities. Ideally, the indicator shall be calculated as the ratio between the sum of detected and undetected victims of trafficking over the total population resident in the country, multiplied by 100,000.
New methodologies to estimate the number of undetected victims of trafficking in persons are currently being tested. At the moment, however, the indicator shall be interpreted as number of detected victims of trafficking in persons per 100,000 populations and calculated as follows:
The numerator is composed of the number of detected victims of trafficking.
The denominator is composed of the country population, and the result multiplied per 100,000.
While Member States are requested to provide data on the number of detected victims, by age group, sex and form of exploitation to UNODC, the computation of the indicator is conducted by UNODC, on the basis of the data submitted by Member States and population estimates from the UN World Population Prospects.
4.d. Validation
Following the submission of the GLOTIP questionnaire, UNODC checks for consistency and coherence with other data sources. Data on the number of detected victims of trafficking are shared with Member States for validation prior to publication.
4.e. Adjustments
No standardised adjustments are applied to the data.
4.f. Treatment of missing values (i) at country level and (ii) at regional level
• Missing values on detected victims of trafficking are not imputed or estimated, neither for country level analysis nor for regional or global aggregates, when not provided by national authorities. Methods to estimate undetected victims of trafficking are currently being tested by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
4.g. Regional aggregations
Regional and global aggregates of the number of victims of trafficking are currently not produced. As the data available would only provide an overview of the detected victims of trafficking in persons, regional and global aggregates alone would not provide an accurate overview of the phenomenon.
4.h. Methods and guidance available to countries for the compilation of the data at the national level
UNODC joinly with IOM has produced the International Classification Standards on Administrative Data on Trafficking in Persons (ICS-TIP).
4.i. Quality management
Data quality management is ensured by UNODC. See section 4.d Validation.
4.j. Quality assurance
UNODC is responsible for the quality assurance process. See section 4.d Validation.
4.k. Quality assessment
UNODC regularly perfoms data quality assessments informing the reporting on this indicator.
5. Data availability and disaggregation
Data availability:
Currently the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has regular data collection on detected victims of trafficking in persons for about 140 countries.
Time series:
Information available since 2003 (limited to detected victims of trafficking).
Disaggregation:
Recommended disaggregations for this indicator are:
- sex of victims
- age of victims
- form of exploitation
6. Comparability/deviation from international standards
Sources of discrepancies:
Not applicable.
7. References and Documentation
URL & References:
https://dataunodc.un.org/dp-trafficking-persons
UNODC, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2022