Your Excellency Maria Fekter, Federal Minister of the Interior, Distinguished Officials, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues and Friends,

It is a privilege to be in Vienna and an honour to address this distinguished gathering on an issue so vital to our efforts to combat trafficking in persons.

I also want to thank IOM staff members in Vienna and Geneva, who alongside so many partners that are here today. Together they have pioneered counter-trafficking measures; these measures include innovative trafficking databases and the data collection guidelines we are here to discuss. Let me pay further tribute to the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior for breaking new ground during its tenure as EU President in 2006, and leading the Austrian National Action Plan on counter-trafficking, among other initiatives.

1. IOM's Counter-Trafficking Modus Operandi

IOM takes great pride in its counter-trafficking expertise. IOM has accumulated this valuable experience through the implementation of more than 800 counter-trafficking projects in 85 countries since 1994.

Despite the progress made, however, we also know that human trafficking is as widespread and prevalent today as it was 15 years ago. Trafficking in persons is perhaps the greatest international crime in the era of globalization.

A lucrative criminal enterprise, trafficking nets an estimated USD 36 billion dollars a year - surpassed only by the illegal drugs and arms trades. Human trafficking is a global scourge that transcends borders and feeds on inequality and the vulnerability of men, women, boys and girls. Human trafficking is about as lucrative as running drugs and guns - and is much easier and far less risky.

Much like first responders to a crisis, we have worked with our partners at a frenetic pace in order - first and foremost - to protect and assist the victims of trafficking. In doing so, we have sought to make a qualitative difference in the lives of more than 20,000 trafficked persons – we have mounted public information campaigns in origin, transit and destination countries to targeted audiences; we have assisted with the development of legislation; we have helped to build institutional capacity by training tens of thousands of police officers, immigration officials, legal professionals and health workers…but, we must now balance our qualitative focus with an increased emphasis on quantitative factors that will intensify the fight.

2. The need for an enhanced quantitative focus

A tell-tale sign of this imbalance is our inability to gauge accurately the scale of the trafficking problem. We are all aware of the existing estimates: namely that somewhere between 600,000 and 4 million people are trafficked every year – a discrepancy in numbers akin to the population of Helsinki versus the entire population of Finland.

Without reliable, standardized data on the scale of the problem we cannot determine the numbers of victims and perpetrators, nor identify and monitor global trafficking routes and trends. Without such data we cannot form a comprehensive global picture of trafficking, or grasp the complexities and challenges of trafficking. Moreover, without reliable, standardized data, we are unable to measure the effectiveness of our policies and programmes - unable to determine which of these constitute replicable good practices.

For all these reasons, today's conference on data collection comes at a most opportune time.

Clear and concise guidelines will help us to improve our policies and programmes and better evaluate our impact. Such guidelines will also facilitate the application of good practices across the three major areas of our work - the so-called “three Ps” - prevention, protection and prosecution. I would add a fourth P called partnership - one of my three key strategic priorities for IOM. Partnership will continue to underpin everything we do at IOM.

3. Conclusion

IOM stands ready to deepen and broaden its partnership with the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior and the European Commission. We value these partnerships. We believe that state partnerships are the best way to address the quantitative gap, and so we thank the Austrian Government for this initiative and the European Commission Directorate General for Justice, Liberty and Security for its financial assistance.

Madam Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, this concludes my remarks. There is an impressive treasure of knowledge and expertise assembled in this room, and I am anxious to hear your views on how we can combine our resources and energy to move forward and make major progress on the collection of data on trafficking.