News Center – A report on combating human trafficking issued by the United Nations Office revealed that the number of child victims of human trafficking increased over the last fifteen years.

On February 2, 2020, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) issued its global report on combating human trafficking. The report revealed that about 50,000 people were the victims of human trafficking in 2018.

The global report has been issued every two years. The 2020 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons pointed out the emergence of a new type of human trafficking called “Jihad al-nikah” which means using women to offer themselves as comfort women "to boost the morale of fighters".

Human trafficking has many forms; including child marriage or forced labor, sex trafficking, organ trafficking, and sexual exploitation.

The report showed that the wars, conflicts and the economic, political, and social tragedies around the world cause the increase in the number of victims of human trafficking; also the global Covid-19 pandemic outbreak that came after a global economic crisis and conflicts left devastating effects on societies and led to a significant increase in the proportion of victims of human trafficking.

The report also noted the increase in human trafficking through the new technology; the traffickers use the internet for sexual trafficking services.

The report pointed that the families who forcibly displaced from conflict zones, were forced to give some family members to be able to provide a good living for the family.

Statistics also showed that more than 65 % of human trafficking cases spread and take place through organized criminal networks across national borders. The traffickers use many systematic methods for making profits in various forms, including forced labor, forced domestic work, sexual purposes, or even sometimes use organ trafficking to sell organs from one country to another.

The human trafficking and cultivation of narcotic substances increase around the world, and  it is not easy to combat these profitable proceeds of criminal gangs without efforts at the individual, national, regional, and international levels.