2.4 million human trafficking victims around the world at any given time: U.N.

A woman sits outside the South African Parliament on
September 21, 2011 in Cape Town, demonstrating
against human trafficking and calling for the adoption
of the South African Prevention and Combating in
Trafficking in Persons (TIP) bill.

$32 billion is being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals running human trafficking networks

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wednesday, April 4, 2012, 12:01 AM

The U.N. crime-fighting office said Tuesday that 2.4 million people across the globe are victims of human trafficking at any one time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves.

Yuri Fedotov, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told a daylong General Assembly meeting on trafficking that 17 percent are trafficked to perform forced labor, including in homes and sweat shops.

He said $32 billion is being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals running human trafficking networks, and two out of every three victims are women.

Fighting these criminals "is a challenge of extraordinary proportions," Fedotov said.

"At any one time, 2.4 million people suffer the misery of this humiliating and degrading crime," he said.

According to Fedotov's Vienna-based office, only one out of 100 victims of trafficking is ever rescued.

Fedotov called for coordinated local, regional and international responses that balance "progressive and proactive law enforcement" with actions that combat "the market forces driving human trafficking in many destination countries."  READ MORE