Some Ugly Truths about Human Trafficking

The UN's Office on Drugs and Crime released its annual Global Report on Trafficking in Persons a few weeks ago.

The Dutch fared poorly. A uniform comparison across countries is difficult since reported data varies by country. Countries provide some sub-set of people prosecuted, convicted, investigated or suspected of trafficking. A quick look through the data suggests that the Netherlands is either much better at prosecuting people, or that human trafficking is a problem for the Dutch. Conviction and prosecution rates per capita in Holland were eight times as high as the UK. The UK has roughly four times the population of the Netherlands, but the UK prosecuted and convicted less than half the number of people that Holland did.

Another interesting anomaly was the gender breakdown of convictions in Eastern Europe. In Latvia, for example, women are convicted of less than 10% of all crimes, but they account for over half of human trafficking convictions.

Anyways, the big picture is very dim. Sometimes it is easy to forget that it is 2009.