Perpetrators of trafficking

According to IOM case data, over 37,000 perpetrators of trafficking in persons have been identified in total. Over 17,000 trafficking victims identified at least one perpetrator.

Identified perpetrators are mostly males between 39 and 48 years of age or older (52%). According to victims, male perpetrators tend to be slightly older than female perpetrators, who most commonly are 38 years old or younger (57%). Generally, about 90 per cent of victims are trafficked by perpetrators from their own region.

58 per cent of female victims are trafficked or exploited by male perpetrators. Most male victims were also trafficked by male perpetrators (91%). Most trafficked persons (70%) reported that ‘others’^[1] trafficked them. The share of female victims reporting that they are trafficked by someone they know (35%) is higher than male victims (26%).

44 per cent of trafficked persons are exploited by recruiters or brokers, 33 per cent by someone involved in the transaction process, and the remainder by someone who controlled, abused, or kidnapped them. 60 per cent of female perpetrators are identified as recruiters or brokers, whereas male perpetrators are involved in the transaction process or controlled, abused, or kidnapped the victim (45%).

^[1] The perpetrator is a stranger to the victim, has another kind of relationship with the victim, or has an unknown relationship with the victim. See the Global Victim-Perpetrator Synthetic Dataset Codebook for a detailed explanation.