UN steps up fight against human trafficking

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is stepping up its fight against human trafficking and migrant smuggling, it announced on Monday, reported Xinhua.

Combating child trafficking will be a top priority under the action by UNODC. It also highlighted the links between trafficking and smuggling, and other forms of organized crime such as cybercrime, money laundering, drug trafficking, firearms trafficking and corruption.

UNODC will also expand its on-the-ground presence, deploying resident experts to the countries most in need of help, while ratcheting up its commitment to sustainable development and gender equality.

The progress made over the past two decades in fighting trafficking and smuggling "is today under threat," said Ilias Chatzis, chief of UNODC's Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Section, on Monday. This is due to global challenges including war, large migration and refugee flows, cybercrime, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said have drastically reshaped the crime landscape in recent years.

"Financial crises, armed conflicts and forced displacement, catalyzed by the pandemic, have strained justice systems, significantly reducing investigations, prosecutions, victim identification and protection," UNODC noted. Digital technologies have also exacerbated the situation, it said.