The United Nations and reports
Summary of the ILO 2012 Global Estimate of Forced Labour
Using a new and improved statistical methodology, the ILO estimates that 20.9 million people are victims of forced labour globally, trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and which they cannot leave. Read the report
The Palermo Protocol
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Protocol) came into force on December 25, 2003. Referred to as the “Palermo Protocol,” it is the main legal and normative framework to combat human trafficking.
As of September 2008, 119 states have ratified the Palermo Protocol. Many, like the United States, have passed their own human trafficking/modern-day slavery laws. Numerous regions and subregions have also passed their own instruments, such as the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings which entered into force in February 2008.
To learn more about the work of the United Nations, visit the United Nations Office of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
Reports
- UNDOC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2012
- First Annual Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations (February 2009)
- Separated Haitian children risk being sold, trafficked or kept in slave-like conditions — U.N. human rights experts (February 2010)
- In the Middle of an Economic Crisis — who is the Victim of Human Trafficking?, a report by the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children. (October 2009/August 2009)
- The Cost of Coersion, International Labour Organisation, May 2009 - This study on the patterns of forced labor supplements the previous ILO report on forced labor published in 2005 which provided figures showing that some 12.3 million persons worldwide were in some form of forced labor or bondage. Of these, 9.8 million were exploited by private agents, including more than 2.4 million in forced labor as a result of human trafficking. This report evaluates national and international efforts at addressing this crime. The report estimates that the “opportunity cost” of coercion to the workers affected by these abusive practices, in terms of lost earnings, now reaches more than $20 billion.
UN.GIFT
The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) was conceived to promote the global fight on human trafficking, on the basis of international agreements reached at the U.N. UN.GIFT works with all stakeholders - governments, business, academia, civil society and the media — to support each other's work, create new partnerships and develop effective tools to fight human trafficking.
