Counter-Trafficking

Over 25 years of experience in counter-trafficking

IOM works in collaboration with governments, the United Nations, international and non-governmental organizations, the private sector and human rights, peace and development actors on all aspects of counter-trafficking responses – prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership – across humanitarian and development settings. 

Since the mid-1990s, IOM and its partners have provided protection and assistance to over 100,000 men, women and children, including those at risk of violence, exploitation and abuse and those who were trafficked. Agriculture, fishing, domestic work and hospitality, commercial sexual exploitation, pornography, begging, construction and manufacturing are some of the sectors in which victims were, and continue to be, most often exploited. 

Trafficking in Persons (TIP) is a crime and grave human rights violation of enormous scale, which is prevalent in peace, as well as in conflict and disaster areas. In fact, traffickers capitalize on the widespread human, material, social and economic losses and consequent vulnerabilities caused by emergencies. Humanitarian crises not only intensify existing trends of Trafficking in Persons, but they can also lead to new forms of trafficking.¹ 

IOM encourages Member States and key actors to engage in eliminating trafficking. It does so by contributing to a number of regional and international multilateral processes, including the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT), the Global Protection Cluster Anti-Trafficking Task Team in Humanitarian Action,  Alliance 8.7, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.  

IOM also works with humanitarian actors to ensure that anti-trafficking considerations are integrated within emergency response interventions, to prevent and mitigate risk of further harm.