New Rise in Cases of Human Trafficking Fueled by COVID-19

Writes Ares, Content Writer, Headline Diplomat eMagazine, LUDCI.eu
The United Nations, through its Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), has announced that the COVID-19 pandemic is fueling the rise in human trafficking cases – a type of modern slavery that primarily targets children and women.

According to the new report by the UNODC, the exploitation of minors has grown in the last three decades, and "about 50,000 human trafficking victims were detected and reported by 148 countries" just in 2018.

The proportion of children among detected trafficking victims has tripled in the last 15 years. Girls are often sexually exploited, while boys end up in forced labor, according to the latest UNODC Global Report on Human Trafficking.

Most of the victims are female; out of every ten people rescued from the mafias in 2018, five were adult women, and two were girls, representing 70% of the total.

"Over the last 15 years, the number of detected victims has increased, while their profile has changed," the report reads. "The share of adult women among the detected victims fell from more than 70 percent to less than 50 percent in 2018, while the share of children detected has increased...