Human Trafficking Must Stop

“Over 200,000 victims detected globally from 2020 to 2023, with a 25% rise in known cases since 2019. Forced labour has overtaken sexual exploitation, and the number of child victims has surged by 31%. Trafficking for forced criminality, including online scams, is rapidly growing. These patterns show how traffickers exploit digital spaces, conflict, and socio-economic crises with ruthless efficiency.”

Table of Contents

Human Trafficking Must Stop

This year’s World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is an opportunity for profound reflection and renewed resolve. As 2025 marks both the Jubilee Year for Christian communities and the 25th anniversary of the Palermo Protocols, COATNET reaffirms its commitment to ending human trafficking. This organised crime gravely violates the inalienable dignity of every person.

The 2024 UNODC Global Report confirms the crime’s staggering scope: over 200,000 victims detected globally from 2020 to 2023, with a 25% rise in known cases since 2019. Forced labour has overtaken sexual exploitation, and the number of child victims has surged by 31%. Trafficking for forced criminality, including online scams, is rapidly growing. These patterns show how traffickers exploit digital spaces, conflict, and socio-economic crises with ruthless efficiency. As John-Michael Lander, a U.S. citizen, survivor, and founder of Athlete’s Silence, aptly noted:

“No country is immune.”

In response, COATNET has actively participated in the 2025 Regional Preparatory Meetings, which took place ahead of the 15th UN Crime Congress. Across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Western Asia, and Europe, civil society has called for survivor-centred, rights-based, and globally coordinated action. The themes addressed included youth inclusion (Generation Justice), the intersection of climate change and vulnerability, cybercrime regulation, and the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—notably SDG 16.2, with strong links to SDG 5.2 and SDG 8.7. These themes highlight the complex and cross-cutting nature of human trafficking, which spans across human rights, gender equality, labour rights, and justice systems.

Human trafficking is not a marginal issue—it is organised crime, and our responses must match its scale and complexity. This means strengthening legal systems, disrupting illicit financial flows, and ensuring survivors have access to justice, protection, and long-term support. It also means listening to those affected, recognising that survivors are not just victims but agents of change.

This includes calling for survivor-centred legal reforms, access to compensation and protection, and policy responses that address the root causes of trafficking—poverty, violence, displacement, and discrimination.

Far too many cases go unreported or unpunished. Survivors often face revictimisation and marginalisation. COATNET members urge governments to strengthen their legal systems, uphold international commitments, and close the impunity gap.

As Christian organisations, we are called to walk with the oppressed, not only in compassion but in action. Solidarity is justice in motion. It demands legal reform, political will, and moral clarity.

“Let this year be a time of personal and collective conversion: from indifference to compassionate action, from complicity to responsibility, from silence to prophetic voice.”

Alistair Dutton, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis

Together, let us rise to end the crime that shames us all.

For further details about COATNET member organizations, please click here.

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