Victims by age and sex

According to the UNODC 2022 Global Trafficking in Persons report, in 2020, 60 % of all victims of trafficking in persons detected globally were women and girls (42 % and 18 % respectively), while 40 % were men and boys (23 % and 17 %). Female victims continue to be the worst affected by trafficking, yet it appears that over the last 16 years the number of men, boys, and girls detected has risen more than that of women: the share of adult women fell from over 74 % in 2004 to 42 % in 2020. In contrast, there has been an alarming upward trend in trafficking in children, as the proportion of child victims increased during the same period from 13 % to 35 %, i.e. over a third of all detected victims.
The data collected for the EU by the European Commission show a similar picture, according to which on average 7 000 people per year are victims of human trafficking and the estimated cost of such a crime is €2.7 billion per year is. According to the fourth report on the progress made in the fight against trafficking in human beings from 2022, trafficking maintains a clear gender dimension with 63 % of the victims in the EU being women and girls. Even though the share of male victims in 2019 2020 rose compared to 2017 2018 (from 23 % to 33 %), women and girls account for 87 % of the victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, while men account for the 66 % of victims of trafficking for labour exploitation. Children represent one quarter of the victims (23 %), a large majority of which have EU citizenship (85 %) and are female (75 %). Law enforcement cooperation has intensified, as illustrated by the increased number of suspects (29 %) compared to the previous reporting period. In 2019 2020, 6 539 prosecutions and 3 019 convictions were registered within the EU. However, during the same period, the number of prosecutions compared to the number of suspects decreased to 43 %, compared to 53 % during 2017 2018.