The Palermo Protocol, signed in 2001 and later ratified by many countries throughout the world, defined human trafficking:
“Recruiting, transporting or transferring a person, concealing a person or receiving a person through threats or any form of coercion, abduction, fraud or abuse of power or the exploitation of a vulnerable position or granting or receiving payment or benefits to obtain the consent of a person, who has authority over another person for the purpose of exploiting that person.”
It is irrelevant whether the trader has consented to the exploitation, if any of the means above have been used.
Trafficking in human beings was incorrectly associated with forced sex work and women and children for many years. The first Danish action plan in 2003, for example, focused exclusively on women and children. However, human trafficking includes multiple forms of exploitation of people, and this fact has also now been recognized and included in the Danish Action plans since 2016.
Globally, people are trafficked and exploited, for example, into begging, social fraud, domestic servitude, sex work, including forced pornography, organ harvesting, and forced labour in mining, fishing, and construction industries.
The UN describes human trafficking as the fastest growing area of organized crime and has remained, despite all efforts, a high-profit low, risk criminal enterprise.