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Trafficking in Persons during COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is putting the world under enormous strain, affecting the lives of everyone. The unprecedented measures adopted to flatten the infection curve include enforced quarantine, curfews and lockdowns, travel restrictions, and limitations on economic activities and public life. While at first sight, these enforcement measures and increased police presence at the borders and on the streets seem to dissuade crime, they may also drive it further underground. In trafficking in persons, criminals are adjusting their business models to the ‘new normal’ created by the pandemic, especially through the abuse of modern communications technologies. At the same time, COVID-19 impacts the capacity of state authorities and non-governmental organizations to provide essential services to the victims of this crime. Most importantly, the pandemic has exacerbated and brought to the forefront the systemic and deeply entrenched economic and societal inequalities that are among the root causes of human trafficking.
The Victims
Identification of trafficking victims is difficult, even under normal circumstances. The main reasons include the fact that trafficking victims are often exploited in illegal, informal or unregulated sectors (e.g. petty crime, sex industry, domestic settings, drug cultivation and trafficking, agriculture and construction); the capacity of organized crime to hide its operations in plain sight; the lack of willingness by the victims themselves to report their victimization or their inability to do so; and limited law enforcement capacities to detect this crime.
There are fears that COVID-19 is making the task of identifying victims of human trafficking even more difficult. They are also more exposed to contracting the virus, less equipped to prevent it, and have less access to healthcare to ensure their recovery. Essential and practical operations to support them have become a challenge, due to countries adjusting their priorities during the pandemic. Dramatic increases in unemployment and reductions in income, especially for low wage and informal sector workers, mean that significant numbers of people who were already vulnerable find themselves in even more precarious circumstances. From the garment industry, agriculture and farming, to manufacturing and domestic work, millions of people who were living in subsistence conditions have lost their wages. Those who continue to work in these sectors, where trafficking is frequently detected, may also face more exploitation because of the need to lower production costs due to economic difficulties, as well as due to less controls by the authorities.
NGOs working with UNODC speak of a significant percentage of their beneficiaries losing their sources of income and access to food staples due to pandemic-related measures. They report of loan sharks promising low interest loans to these people, increasing the possibility of debt-bondage. This means a vulnerable population has now become even more exposed to the risk of severe exploitation as they try to identify means to secure their livelihoods.
Children are at heightened risk of exploitation, especially since school closures have not only precluded many from access to education but also from a main source of shelter and nourishment. In some countries, because of the pandemic, more children are forced on to the streets in search of food and income, heightening their risk of infection and exploitation. In Senegal UNODC is supporting the Government in a large-scale operation that aims to identify thousands of street children that studied in religious boarding schools. These children were often subjected to exploitation and are now at heightened risk. UNODC will support the return to their families or placement in shelters. Since their schools are closed, many children are increasingly online for learning and socializing. This may make them more vulnerable to online sexual predators. Child rights groups, law enforcement officials and international organizations report of a greater demand for online sexual abuse material and risks of online grooming.
For the victims still in confinement by their traffickers, COVID-19 measures may make their desperate situation even worse. The increased levels of domestic violence reported in many countries is a worrying indicator for the living conditions of many trafficking victims, such as those in domestic servitude or sex slavery, forms of exploitation that disproportionately affect women and girls. In an environment where priorities and actions are geared towards limiting the spread of the virus, it is easier for traffickers to hide their operations, making victims increasingly invisible. Identification of victims and subsequent referral to social protection schemes may therefore become more challenging. In addition, NGOs performing prison and immigration detention monitoring need to adjust their activities due to the pandemic-related measures, resulting in detained victims potentially not being identified in such settings.
Restriction or control of movement of victims is a common feature of trafficking in persons. Lockdowns and confinement could reinforce the isolation of victims and reduce drastically any chance of them being identified and removed from such exploitative situations. During the pandemic, there are additional obstacles to accessing services, assistance and support, due to rules on confinement at home and related closure of NGOs and government offices. Isolation and social distancing can exacerbate mental health issues and disrupt any access to informal support networks. With the reduction of government services and changes in the way they are administered, identified victims who were already being supported by government services or community groups may face challenges.
For instance, victims who have been provided with temporary immigration documents or time-limited services linked to their status as victims of trafficking might not be able to renew them easily. The situation can worsen if borders are closed and planned repatriations cannot take place, while residence permits and related access to healthcare and social benefits have already expired. In a promising step, some States have automatically extended all temporary and transitory visas, while others have suspended fines for unauthorized stay or extended medical coverage to anyone in their territory who is awaiting a decision from the administration on their status in the current context.
COVID-related measures may disproportionately affect certain categories of people at risk of exploitation. Undocumented migrants and seasonal workers are faced with more precarious working and living conditions, resulting in greater vulnerability to falling prey to criminal networks. There are concerns that people in the sex industry and domestic work will be more vulnerable to exploitation, as health hazards and exposure to COVID-19 increase.
Referral mechanisms, which are essential for identification of victims of trafficking and their access to rights, are impacted as vital cogs slow down or cease to work. As a result, the identification of victims and subsequent referral to protection schemes becomes more challenging. In-person counselling, representation and assistance, including legal aid, are reduced to a minimum or subjected to lengthy waiting times and backlogs. Consultations, when possible, are offered online, which may introduce further barriers to accessing support.
Civil society organizations have already issued alerts about access to shelters being denied to trafficking victims because of COVID-19. Some shelters have had to close because of reported infections and others have partially suspended services. Lack of housing, healthcare, legal and other services can increase vulnerabilities both to re-trafficking and to COVID-19 infection. Promising practices have been developed by some countries that allow victims of trafficking to remain in government-funded safe accommodation while the crisis lasts.