Human trafficking is the practice of people being tricked, lured, coerced or otherwise removed from their house or nation, and then obligatory to work with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. The practice is considered to be the trade or commerce of people, which has a lot of features of slavery, and which is illegal in most countries. The sufferers of human trafficking are used in a variety of situations, including prostitution, enforced labor, and other forms of unintentional servitude.
The sale of babies and children for adoption or other purposes is considered to be trafficking in those children.Though trafficking in human beings is an age-old occurrence, it was not until December 2000 that the international community reached a consensus on a common normative definition on trafficking human beings, in the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and penalize Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (hereafter called the Palermo Protocol).For purposes of this research the definition of trafficking in the Palermo Protocol remains a core reference:Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring 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 labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
