Around the globe, an estimated 27 million people are exploited for labor, services, and commercial sex. Through force, fraud, and coercion, they are made to toil in fields and factories, in restaurants and residences. Traffickers prey on some of the world’s most marginalized and vulnerable individuals – profiting from their plight. Among these individuals are children who are forced into criminality, sex trafficking, child soldiering, and in some countries the forced marriage of children has been defined as a form of exploitation.
The State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report provides the world’s most comprehensive assessment of this practice, as well as efforts by governments and stakeholders around the globe to combat it. The report measures progress in 188 countries with the goal to prevent trafficking, prosecute perpetrators, and protect survivors.
Even as this resource covers long-standing forms and methods of trafficking, it also examines the growing role of technology in both facilitating exploitation and countering it.
