By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

This is the fifth global report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), mandated by the General Assembly through the 2010 Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons. The report comes at a time when global suffering has vastly increased vulnerabilities to trafficking. Extreme poverty is expected to rise for the first time in decades, with the continuing COVID-19 crisis casting a long shadow over our societies and economies. With many millions more women, men and children in every part of the world out of school, out of work, without social support and facing diminished prospects, targeted action is urgently needed to stop crimes like trafficking in persons from adding to the pandemic’s toll. In order to act, we need to understand better the factors that facilitate human trafficking. It is in this spirit that I present to you the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2020. The report draws on data from 148 countries and explores issues of particular relevance in the current crisis, including the impact of socio-economic factors, drivers of child trafficking and trafficking for forced labour, and traffickers’ use of the internet.

Vienna: UNODC, 2021. 176p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

In April 2015, the UNODC Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific released the report Migrant Smuggling in Asia (Volume I), the result of an intensive effort to collect and share data and information on migrant smuggling spanning 28 States and territories in the Asia region. This new report, Migrant Smuggling in Asia and the Pacific (Volume II) builds on that work. Covering 40 States and territories, it expands upon the geographical scope of the previous report to include the Pacific and gives an updated overview of migrant smuggling in the region as a whole.

Bangkok, Thailand: UNODC, Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific , 2018. 339p.

By Andreas Schloenhardt

This research report identifies, outlines, and examines criminal offences pertaining to the smuggling of migrants in the ten ASEAN Member States. The report gives insight into the legislative framework relating to the criminalisation of smuggling of migrants in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Malaysia, the Union of Myanmar (Myanmar), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Domestic offences are compared to the criminalisation requirements set out in the United Nations Smuggling of Migrants Protocol and the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Using this approach, similarities and differences to the international framework are highlighted and recommendations are developed to facilitate the accurate and comprehensive implementation of the Protocol requirements into domestic laws. Recent developments led by ASEAN to provide coordinated responses to smuggling of migrants and to facilitate cooperation and information exchange between Member States are also documented and their potential further explored. This report serves to assist ASEAN Member States in their efforts to prevent and combat the smuggling of migrants effectively, enhance international cooperation, protect the rights of smuggled migrants, and to strengthen the role of ASEAN in this field.

Bangkok, Thailand: United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, 2019. 208p.