UN renews call for collective efforts against human trafficking

Source: Xinhua| 2017-09-23 01:04:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan
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by Christine Lagat

NAIROBI, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The international community must work together to eradicate human trafficking that has worsened against a backdrop of conflicts and poverty in fragile states, an UN official said on Friday.

Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said in a statement issued in Nairobi that the number of people recruited into forced labor and sexual exploitation has soared lately.

"People are laboring in farms and factories, coerced into sex trade and tricked onto fishing boats. The range of coerced activities is equal to the number of places where victims are found," said Fedotov.

Fedotov urged intensive surveillance coupled with law enforcement and public awareness to contain human trafficking that is currently ranked as a leading transnational crime.

"Today, we all need to be vigilant for signs of the modern-day slave trade: sexually exploited and brutalized women and girls; frightened children begging on street corners; and clusters of laborers squalidly living at the workplace. This is the harsh evidence of a crime that haunts all our societies," said Fedotov.

He noted that the 21st century has witnessed an unprecedented surge in human trafficking particularly in strife-torn Middle East and North Africa.

The UN last year rallied member states towards adoption of a sweeping pact to protect people displaced by wars and economic hardships from the snare of traffickers.

Fedotov said that implementation of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime by individual countries will revitalize action on human trafficking.

"We have the tools to disrupt organized crime networks through intelligence sharing, joint operations, financial investigations and coordination across local and regional borders," said Fedotov.

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