Sending-, transit- and receiving countries of trafficking

Human trafficking is a global industry that results in different forms of exploitation within and across countries.

As a result of the complex and fluid nature of the trafficking industry, there are no reliable statistics on the actual number of vulnerable MEN, WOMEN and CHILDREN victims of human trafficking. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that over 75 per cent of approximately 21 million people are trafficked for forced labour and 22 per cent for sex work. Sexual exploitation generates more than double the profits for traffickers than forced labour. Read more from the ILO here.

As a result of the power dynamics between the victims and the perpetrators, trafficked individuals are often exploited in several different ways over time. The types of exploitation that the people HopeNow encounters in Denmark are faced with include sexual exploitation (which is the most prevalent), forced marriage, forced labour, domestic servitude and forced crime. We have occasional encounters in organ harvesting and no direct hands-on experience with benefit fraud or child soldiers.

Not all victims of trafficking are taken across national borders, but in most European countries, people are trafficked from abroad.

The Danish Police Force has declared that the trafficking of women to Denmark has been on the rise since 2002. They estimate that approximately 2,500 foreign women work in the Danish sex industry. All of the vulnerable and marginalised people that HopeNow encounters are of non-Danish origin, and the majority are of West African descent.

Within the field of human trafficking, three categories of country are defined:

1.	SENDING COUNTRIES are the countries of origin of the trafficked person (e.g. Thailand, Nigeria, Columbia)

2.	TRANSIT COUNTRIES are the countries where trafficked persons travel through or stay for an interim period before moving on to a ‘final’ destination (e.g. Spain, Italy, Greece).

3.	RECEIVING COUNTRIES are the countries where the traffickers plan to be their victims ‘final destination (e.g. Denmark, UK, Netherlands). Transit countries can also play the role of being receiving countries as well.

In Denmark is a receiving country

As an NGO situated in Denmark, a receiving country that is both wealthy and also distributes its wealth more evenly than the vast majority of countries in the world, HopeNow considers the transnational dimensions of human trafficking significantly in our everyday work, by speaking to possible and identified victims about their lives, by collaborating with NGOs, GOs and other relevant actors in sending and transit countries, and by educating ourselves independently. We believe that to understand an individual’s present, we must get a good grasp of their past and be able to relate to them whole fellow human beings rather than as victims from a foreign country. In other words, we use our agency and take a multi-agency and multi-agent approach. Read more here.