In response to a mandate from the General Assembly, expressed in the 2010 United Nations Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons (A/RES/64/293), the UNODC Crime Research Section produces the biennial Global Report on Trafficking in Persons. Drawing primarily on official national information collected from countries all over the world, the Global Report presents data and analyses of human trafficking at the national, regional and international levels.
UNODC Research also produces analytical briefs on key trafficking issues, such as TIP in the context of the conflict in Ukraine.
The UNODC Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling section also produces a range of reports and publications on trafficking in persons.
The United Nations General Assembly-mandated Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT), for which UNODC has been assigned a coordinating role, also regularly publishes studies and reports (http://icat.network/publications).
In 2020-2021, UNODC is implementing a project to strengthen the availability and collection of human trafficking data in the Pacific, including the generation of baseline data on trafficking prevalence. The project will culminate in the publication of a regional report at the end of the project period.
In 2021, UNODC is undertaking pilot research to apply a community safety audit methodology to analyse trafficking in persons flows from Albania to the United Kingdom. The goal of the project is to increase the understanding of the nature and characteristics of the trafficking flow at the community level and to translate the findings into evidence-based and locally driven policy initiatives and awareness campaigns to prevent this trafficking flow, which seems to have grown significantly in recent years.
UNODC is the custodian agency of SDG indicator 16.2.2, number of trafficking victims per 100,000 population, by sex, age and form of exploitation. To enable Member States to report on this indicator, UNODC is trialing two approaches. Countries with sound data collection capacity and a minimum number of reported victims may use Multiple Systems Estimation, a statistical technique that permits estimation of the ‘hidden figure’ on the basis of national data on trafficking victims from several different sources. UNODC has worked with four countries to carry out such estimates, namely the Netherlands (comprehensive report), Romania (summary report), Ireland (summary report) and Serbia (summary report). The Manual for monitoring human trafficking prevalence through Multiple Systems Estimation (English, French, Spanish) outlines the principles to apply this method, covers data protection issues and describes how estimates can provide useful insights on the profile of the victims and on the more severe forms of trafficking. Other countries may use specialized surveys. As part of the Pacific regional project, UNODC is carrying out a household survey in Fiji to estimate trafficking prevalence using the network scale-up method.
UNODC regularly undertakes capacity-building on various aspects of human trafficking data. For example, the Pacific regional project includes capacity-building in all the project countries, including the provision of support for establishing national human trafficking databases.