Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings mainly for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labour. Other purposes can be extraction of organs, or tissues or even surrogacy or ova removal. It can also be regarded as modern form of slavery. Trafficking is a lucrative industry. It is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable illegal industry in the world. In 2004, the total annual revenue for trafficking in persons were estimated to be between USD$5 billion and $9 billion.
According to Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime trafficking may be defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. This is the most widely accepted definition of trafficking today.
Other than above discussed definition of trafficking, there are other conventions which have discussed trafficking. States adopted in 1904 the “White Slave Traffic" Agreement treaty applicable to “procuring of women or girls for immoral purposes abroad” or “destined for an immoral life.” It concerns women or girls who have consented to their trafficking. That is, the international community preferred to deal with trafficking first from a public morals perspective, penalizing even the case where the woman has agreed to perform sex work
References: [ 17 ]. United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, 2000, Art 3(2)(a). [ 18 ]. United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, 2000, Art 3(2)(b). [ 19 ]. United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, 2000, Art 3(2)(c). Atlantic Slave Trade.” Boston University International Law Journal. Vol 25, 2007, pp 224-225. Rights. Kamala Kempadoo (ed). London: Paradigm Publishers, 2005, p xiii; Shelly, Louise. “Human trafficking as a form of transnational crime.” in Human Trafficking, Maggy Lee (ed) Publishing, 2007, p 117. Human Rights. Vol 12, 2008, p 83.