Human trafficking and sex: differences, similarities and trends

The CTDC partners acknowledge diverse gender identities and expressions among trafficking victims. However, sex assigned at birth is used for this data analysis unless otherwise indicated. This is to ensure consistency with initial data collection forms, which lacked fields for diverse identities. Also, the disclosure of smaller subsets of victims with diverse gender identities increases data protection risks due to the potential identification of individual cases.

In the past, most registered victims were women, who were registered around four times more frequently than males. However, this gap was smaller in the past 10 years, suggesting increased trafficking of men and/or improvements in the identification of male victims.

In the Global Synthetic Dataset, about 24 per cent of victims are children, irrespective of their sex. About 46 per cent of adult male victims are older than 30 years of age, while around the same proportion of female victims are aged 18-29.

About 73 per cent of male victims are trafficked for forced labour. 48 per cent of labour exploited males are exploited in agriculture, and 36 per cent are exploited in construction. Female victims are around three times less likely to be exploited in forced labour. Among female victims of forced labour (25%), about 67 per cent are exploited in domestic work, and approximately 14 per cent are exploited in the hospitality sector.

Sexual exploitation is about four times more frequent among female victims as opposed to males. Around 75 per cent of female victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation, and 89 per cent of them are exploited in prostitution. Sexually exploited males are mainly exploited in pornography (34%). Female victims (5%) are also more likely to face both sexual exploitation and forced labour, as compared to two per cent of males.

Around 60 per cent of male victims are controlled by threats, debt bondage, or withheld wages. However, female victims more frequently experience psychological, physical and/or sexual abuse (61%) and control through psychoactive substances (18%). These means reflect the differing purposes for which females and males are trafficked.