On this World Day against Trafficking in Persons, the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT) draws urgent attention to one of the fastest growing forms of exploitation: trafficking in persons for the purpose of forced criminality in scam operations.
Behind millions of fraudulent messages are hundreds of thousands of trafficking victims - recruited with false job offers, held in guarded compounds, hotels, offices or residential buildings, and forced to defraud other people under threat of violence or other means. The victims offer a new profile beyond traditional vulnerabilities: they are often educated, speak different languages, and are digitally skilled persons. Additionally, corruption and official complicity are key enabling factors, shielding scam operations from detection and facilitating their expansion.
According to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2024, trafficking in persons for forced criminality is the third most commonly detected form of trafficking in persons globally, through a constant rise in numbers of victims and an increase in geographical scope. Just last month, United Nations Member States agreed for the first time on a shared understanding of this form of crime, recognizing that persons compelled to commit offences as a direct consequence of their trafficking are victims, and must be treated as such.
While data suggest that scam centres have given rise to the most large-scale documented form of trafficking in persons for forced criminality, the phenomenon extends to other criminal activities such as drug trafficking, theft, financial crime, and recruitment into non-State armed groups and groups designated as terrorist organizations.
A critical challenge remains the failure to identify victims. Too often, they are arrested, detained, deported, prosecuted, or punished for offences they were compelled to commit as a direct consequence of their trafficking - in violation of their rights to protection and assistance - discouraging them from reporting their situation or seeking support, and enabling organized criminal networks to continue operating with impunity. Further to the compounded trauma of forced criminality, women victims of forced criminality are at heightened risk of sexual exploitation and additional forms of gender-based violence.
Beyond scam operations, children are disproportionately affected by trafficking for forced criminality, with traffickers taking advantage of their age and vulnerability to force them into criminal activities. Such trafficking is becoming more systematic, occurring at younger ages, and increasingly facilitated through digital platforms. Traffickers frequently target women and girls by posing as romantic partners, establishing emotional control, and exploiting the same gendered vulnerabilities that drive trafficking for sexual exploitation. Refugees, asylum-seekers, stateless persons and migrants are also at a heightened risk, owing to information gaps, disrupted support networks, economic insecurity, and gaps in access to effective legal protection and assistance.
ICAT calls on all States and relevant stakeholders to consider the following measures to address trafficking in persons for forced criminality, reaffirming that all responses be rights-based, victim-centred, trauma-informed, gender-responsive and age-sensitive (particularly child-sensitive), and, in all cases involving children, child-rights-based and guided by the best interests of the child as a primary consideration:
- Recognize and criminalize trafficking in persons for forced criminality as a form of exploitation in legislative and policy frameworks, with context-specific responses that are overarching, inclusive and comprehensive, addressing all manifestations of this crime while taking into account specific risks and vulnerabilities, irrespective of the gravity of the offences involved.
- Foster prevention by addressing core drivers and implementing awareness-raising measures targeted at groups at heightened risk, including by informing of the modus operandi of traffickers.
- Strengthen the collection and use of disaggregated data and research on trafficking for forced criminality, ensuring ethical safeguards and data-protection considerations, to ensure evidence-based responses to trafficking for forced criminality.
- Provide protection and assistance to victims, including by:
- Recognizing and identifying, as victims, those persons who commit offences as a direct consequence of their trafficking;
- Adopting an explicit legal guarantee of the non-punishment principle in national legislation, with particular safeguards for children, ensuring its effective application at all stages, and -where punishment or conviction has already occurred - providing appropriate record relief and other corrective measures;
- Guaranteeing victims access to justice, remedies, and compensation - and providing them with a formalized recovery and reflection period prior to engagement with legal processes, as well as information on the right to seek asylum, drawing on existing international and regional standards;
- Establishing, strengthening and/or formalizing national and transnational referral mechanisms, ensuring continuity of care for transnational trafficking cases across countries of origin, transit and destination through coordinated multi-agency frameworks, including standardized emergency protocols to locate, identify, rescue, safely refer victims to protection and assistance and, where appropriate, support voluntary, safe and dignified repatriation in full respect of non-refoulement obligations and training for frontline staff to recognize indicators of this form of exploitation, with dedicated pathways and specialized services for women and girls, including access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, psychosocial support and safe shelter. Such mechanisms should include child protection actors, incorporate determinations of the best interests, ensure children's right to be heard in accordance with their age and maturity, and provide access to appropriate care, family tracing, and durable solutions where relevant.
- Strengthen intelligence-led and well-coordinated criminal justice responses to ensure the effective prosecution of traffickers, including by:
- Ensuring that operational responses target those who organize, finance and profit rather than concentrating on lower-level actors;
- Enhancing specialized cybercrime, financial-crime, and organized-crime capacities among law enforcement and criminal justice actors, expanding the use of financial investigations, including through a "follow-the-money" approach and asset-recovery measures;
- Tackling corruption as an important enabler of trafficking in persons and strengthening oversight of high-risk settings;
- Cooperating with relevant private-sector actors - including technology platforms, telecommunications providers, financial institutions, recruitment intermediaries, and transport-sector stakeholders - to detect deceptive recruitment, preserve digital evidence, report suspicious activity, and support victim identification, subject to robust human rights, privacy, data protection and victim safety safeguards;
- Strengthening international cooperation and information-sharing, including through the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, the United Nations Convention against Corruption, and any other relevant international framework and United Nations Security Council Resolutions to disrupt transnational criminal networks.
- Ensure that such measures are designed and implemented in full compliance with existing obligations - including, under international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international refugee law and international labour standards - applied with the meaningful and ethical participation of survivors and experts with lived experience, and ensuring that civil society is able to safely and effectively engage in anti-trafficking efforts.
ICAT members and partners stand ready to work towards the eradication of trafficking in persons for forced criminality in all its forms, paying particular attention to its worrying rise in the context of scam operations.
