Human Trafficking in Europe

The ILO estimated that 6.4 million people were in situations of modern slavery in Europe and Central Asia in 2021. In the European Union alone, 10,793 trafficking victims were officially identified in 2023, the highest recorded to date. Most identified victims were women and girls (63%), and about 19% were children, underscoring the gendered and age-based vulnerabilities in trafficking for both sexual exploitation and forced labor.

In Western and Southern Europe, labor exploitation has overtaken sexual exploitation as the dominant form, with men increasingly trafficked into agriculture, construction, and other manual labor sectors. Central and South-Eastern Europe report higher shares of sexual exploitation, with women and girls from countries like Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania often trafficked to richer EU states. Meanwhile, Eastern Europe—especially conflict-affected areas like Ukraine—has seen a rise in male labor exploitation, with 63% of identified victims in 2020 being male. Migration flows and organized crime networks continue to fuel cross-border trafficking, while domestic trafficking remains underreported.

Despite near-universal anti-trafficking legislation, prosecution remains weak: in 2023, only 2,309 convictions were secured out of more than 8,400 suspected traffickers in the EU. Countries have improved victim detection and support mechanisms, however, challenges persist, including under-identification of labor trafficking, limited data from non-EU countries, and the growing use of online platforms for recruitment and exploitation.