EU Anti-Human Trafficking Day Launch of OSCE Report ‘Mapping the online landscape of risks of trafficking in human beings on sexual services websites across the OSCE region,18 October 2023.

Criminals misuse technology during all stages of the human trafficking crime. One of the most frequent examples is the use of online platforms to advertise victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation at scale. Since trafficking in human beings is a financially motivated crime, online platforms play a central role in human trafficking criminal operations because of their capacity to spread information to a broad audience and attract an enormous number of buyers of sexual services, which in turn leads to increased illegal revenues.

In response to this, the Office of the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings conducted a ground-breaking study that, for the first time, maps the websites facilitating sexual services in several OSCE participating States and provides detailed information about how these websites operate. The study also lists information and data associated with the sites and, through an analysis based on trafficking indicators, examines whether they can be exposed to human trafficking’s risks.

The report was presented in an open-to-public event on 18 October 2023, on the occasion of the EU Anti-Human Trafficking Day. During the launch event, a panel of leading global experts highlighted the most interesting aspects of the research.

There is an intense debate in the anti-trafficking community regarding how much human trafficking for sexual exploitation and prostitution overlap and how much these topics need to be analyzed together. As pointed out throughout this report, there is a clear understanding that not all advertisements for sexual services on websites can be categorized as human trafficking cases and that many of these ads refer to people willingly selling sexual services. Nevertheless, a solid evidence base confirms that sexual services websites are one of the main venues for traffickers to advertise their victims for sexual services to earn criminal profits. Precisely for this reason, sexual services websites must be analyzed and understood by the anti-trafficking community to differentiate between the consensual provision of sexual services and cases of trafficking for sexual exploitation.

To view the launch: https://youtu.be/SyszZxDmHsY

To download the report: Mapping the online landscape of risks of trafficking in human beings on sexual services websites across the OSCE region | OSCE