The Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Section of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released its 2021 Annual Report, which highlights the main achievements of the Section during the past year.
Human trafficking is a global and widespread crime, but despite its prevalence research shows persistent low levels of prosecutions and convictions of traffickers.
The Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Section of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released its 2021 Annual Report, which highlights the main achievements of the Section during the past year.
Migrants typically transit through the Gulf region and Africa, with the goal of reaching South or Central America and the Caribbean to ultimately travel to the United States and Canada.
Over the past six months, the STARSOM project supported targeted capacity building in the Maldives and Sri Lanka to better equip practitioners from the two countries to combat the criminal networks behind often risky and unsafe migrant smuggling operations
Every year, criminal networks smuggle thousands of migrants using long and dangerous transcontinental routes.
Migrants from South Asia are smuggled into Gulf and West African countries, which are often used as "transit hubs", before reaching South America or the Mediterranean shores.
From South America, criminals use various routes through Central America and the Caribbean to reach the United States and Canada.