Modern slavery

# 3.1 The victims and perpetrators of THB

Having learnt about some of the myths surrounding victims of THB, you'll now look at the statistics on THB from the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2012).

## Activity 6 Who are the victims and perpetrators of THB?

Analyse the statistics below and answer the following questions.

#### Question 1

What gender are the majority of the victims? What proportion of the victims are male?

Figure 6 Gender and age profile of victims detected globally, 2009
View long description
(A text entry box would appear here, but your browser does not support it.)

## Discussion

The vast majority (76 per cent) of victims of THB are female. Nearly a quarter of the victims (24 per cent) are male.

#### Question 2

Analyse the chart below. In which region of the world are the majority of victims children and in which region are they predominantly adult?

Figure 7 Share of child victims detected by region, 2007–2010
View long description
(A text entry box would appear here, but your browser does not support it.)

## Discussion

Children amount to 68 per cent of the victims of trafficking in Africa and in the Middle East. In contrast, in Europe and Central Asia, children constitute only 16 per cent of the overall number of victims. The majority of victims in Europe and Central Asia are adults (84 per cent).

#### Question 3

Analyse the chart below. Who are the perpetrators of THB? Have you noticed anything surprising in the statistics on perpetrators?

Figure 8 Shares of persons convicted of trafficking in persons, by gender, regional/sub-regional averages, 2007–2010
View long description
(A text entry box would appear here, but your browser does not support it.)

## Discussion

Apart from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the majority of convicted perpetrators are male. The proportion of male perpetrators in other geographic regions is between 58 per cent (Americas) and 79 per cent (Africa and the Middle East).

Interestingly, in Eastern Europe and in Central Asia, women amount to over three quarters (77 per cent) of the convicted perpetrators of THB. Qualitative studies suggest that women involved in human trafficking are normally found in low-ranking positions of the trafficking networks and carry out duties that are more exposed to the risk of detection and prosecution, than those of male traffickers.

OpenLearn - Modern slavery
Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.