Tag Archive: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Traffickers Found Targeting More Children As COVID-19 School Closures Fuel Danger

March 9, 2021

LONDON, Feb 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Human traffickers worldwide are increasingly targeting children and will likely exploit school closures during the coronavirus pandemic to abuse the young, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Children make up a third of trafficking victims who are uncovered – a share that has tripled in the past 15 years, with girls mainly exploited for sex and boys forced into work, a report by the U.N. Office On Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found.

About 49,000 victims were detected and reported in total in 2018 – up from 24,000 in 2016 – according to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, which was based on research conducted before the start of the pandemic.

While worsening poverty and job losses spurred by COVID-19 have left millions of people globally at risk of trafficking, out-of-school children are especially vulnerable, UNODC said.

About 222 million schoolchildren – one in eight pupils – are affected by school closures, according to UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural agency. The figure hit 1.6 billion in April last year.

“It is particularly alarming that in recent years more and more children are being targeted by traffickers,” UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said during a virtual briefing.

“Already targeted and potentially at risk, youth who are denied their right to education will particularly find themselves easier prey for traffickers,” she added.

Trafficking of children is more prevalent in poorer countries where it is linked to child labour, according to UNODC, which said young people are “easier to exploit” when communities are used to sending them to work away from home.

Read the full story by Kieran Guilbert on Thomas Reuters Foundation News.

EU, UNODC Launch 3-Year Project To Dismantle Migrant Smuggling, Human Trafficking Networks

October 18, 2019

The European Union and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa are launching a three-year project aimed at supporting Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia in dismantling migrant smuggling and human trafficking criminal networks operating in North Africa, the duo announced in a press statement.

The EU has set a budget of €15m ($16.69m) for the project, which will be implemented by the UNODC Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa under the framework of the North Africa Window of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa.

According to the UNODC, trafficking in persons is the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, intending to exploit them. Smuggling of migrants involves the procurement for financial or other material benefits of illegal entry of a person into a state of which that person is not a national or resident.

The project aims at supporting member states in dismantling organized criminal networks involved in migrant smuggling and human trafficking.

 

To read the full story on Daily News Egypt: Click Here