UN: 1 in 3 Human Trafficking Victims a Child, Crime Goes Mostly Unpunished Revathi Siva Kumar - RT.com
go to original November 27, 2014

Vanessa Castillo holds her one-year-old daughter during a news conference in Mexico City November 5, 2009. According to local media, the Mexican mother was reunited with her daughter after the baby girl was sold by a child trafficking ring allegedly headed by the owner of a small private hospital, where Castillo gave birth to a girl by caesarean section on 25 October 2008. Castillo was not allowed to see her newborn and was told later the child had died and had already been cremated. (Reuters/Attorney General of Mexico)

The number of children among human trafficking victims has increased from one in five to one in three over the last decade, according to a newly-released UN report. It also says the number of convictions for the crime is “extremely low.”

In its latest report, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says the child trafficking figure is particularly high in Africa and the Middle East, where it represents two-thirds of all human trafficking cases.

The watchdog acknowledges its estimates are based on a tip-of-the-iceberg official numbers, but says the figures can still give an idea of the scale of the problem.

"Unfortunately, the report shows there is no place in the world where children, women and men are safe from human trafficking," said UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov.

Read the rest at RT.com

Mexico launches national campaign against human trafficking in 2010 (UNODC)

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