Trafficking in human beings is a global phenomenon and occurs in most precarious sectors with weak labour rights, such as the sex industry, building and agricultural sectors, but also in private households. Trafficked persons are exploited for their labour and experience a series of rights violations, ranging from restriction of movement and confiscation of pay, to violence and abuse.

Although trafficking is widely recognised as a serious human rights violation, support for trafficked persons is still inadequate, only a small fraction of trafficked persons is identified, and an even smaller percentage decides to press charges.

Trafficking is caused by a variety of factors (so-called root causes) that occur in all stages of the trafficking process: in countries of origin (poverty or unequal gender relations) and destination (demand for cheap labour or repressive migration policies) and during the migration process (lack of safe/ legal migration opportunities).

The stereotype of a person who ends up in a trafficking situation is that of a young and maybe naïve woman who is forced into prostitution. However, women trafficked into the sex industry have different backgrounds and personal stories. Moreover, trafficking does not only concern women and is not limited to the sex industry.

Although there are no reliable figures on the number of people trafficked every year, contrary to the common portrayal of human trafficking as mainly occurring in the sex industry, it is possible that the majority of the total of trafficked persons world-wide is actually exploited in other industries