On 5 August 2024, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University (FXB) published a report titled "From Evidence to Action: Twenty Years of IOM Child Trafficking Data to Inform Policy and Programming". The report is based on the IOM Victims of Trafficking Database (VoTD), which contains primary data collected from approximately 69.000 victims of human trafficking of 156 nationalities, trafficked in 186 countries, who registered with IOM in 113 countries where the Organization works; 18.3 per cent of VoTs in the database were children. 

The report aims to contribute to understanding child trafficking’s dynamics and drivers while focusing on the vulnerabilities and human rights violations that emerge throughout the trafficking process. It highlights trends and patterns such as:

• Among the 69.514 victims assisted by IOM between 2002 and the first half of 2021, for whom complete information on “age at registration” was recorded, 12.754 reported being 17 years old or younger at the age of their entry into the trafficking process, at the time of their exploitation, or at the time of their registration with IOM.
   
• 57,4 % of child victims were female and 42,6 % were male.
   
• Children aged 13–17 formed the largest group of child victims (46.6%).
   
• More than half of the child victims reported the involvement of friends and family in their recruitment into trafficking (37.4% and 14.7%, respectively; 51.1%, taken together).
   
• False promises were the most common means of control reported by children (58,9%), followed by psychological and physical abuse (56,3% and 50,6%, respectively). Use of threats against the victims (39,5%), as well as the use of excessive working hours to control them (36.5%), were also reported by a sizeable share of child victims.
   
• 43,4 % of child victims were trafficked for forced labour, 20,8 % were trafficked for sexual exploitation and a smaller number for both forced labour and sexual exploitation.

The report recommends inter alia strengthening the evidence base on trafficking in general, and child trafficking in particular. It also suggests preventing and reducing vulnerability to trafficking, including through prevention measures that respond to trafficking dynamics and address individual-, community- and society-level factors that contribute to vulnerability to child trafficking.

For further information, please read the IOM press release and the full report.