By Stephanie Holmes
BBC News
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Penny was almost 29 when she was trafficked from Rwanda to the UK, tricked
into believing she could start a new life.
Thousands
of women are trafficked into marriage in India each year
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Instead, she ended up
trapped in a small flat in south-west London.
She had unwittingly stepped into a trap
laid by a trafficker, becoming a commodity in what campaigners say is the
world's fastest growing illegal trade - in people.
Yet when Penny agreed to meet the agent,
introduced to her by a friend, she was unaware that human trafficking even
existed.
"I didn't think about the
consequences. I just took the opportunity to get out of the country,"
Penny said.
"I had never heard what
trafficking was all about until I was here. I didn't know anything about it
at all."
Profitable trade
Penny's story is just one of many that
remain hidden. The UN estimates that some 2.5 million people are in forced
labour at any given time, as a result of trafficking.
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 I
was under his control - mentally, physically - I was under his control. I
couldn't even sneeze without him knowing 
Penny,
trafficking survivor
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"We don't know much
about the size of the iceberg that lies beneath," admitted Antonio Mario
Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
"Like any other market - and it is a
perverse kind of market - there is a supply in terms of people who are duped,
coerced or tricked, and a demand, people who may be buying the sort of
commodities we are talking about. And there is the act of connecting the
supply and demand - those who do the trafficking," he said.
Minors
are particularly at risk of working in exploitative conditions
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The UN says governments have
fallen behind on commitments to tackle the problem and has called a
conference in Vienna this week to urge more concerted action.
While 116 out of 192 UN member states have
ratified an Anti-Trafficking Protocol, which came into force in 2005, some
governments still do not have any legislation in place.
A few of the member states who have not yet
even signed the convention include countries identified by UNODC as having a
high number of people trafficked from them - such as India and Pakistan.
Japan too, which scores "very
high" as a destination country, has yet to sign the international
accord.
Ruth Dearnley of the coalition of
campaigning groups, Stop the Traffik, says human trafficking has never been a
top priority for the international community.
"Enforcement agencies have always
focused on the drugs and arms trade but this is the fastest growing global
crime," she said.
"If you make money out of illegal
products then, in some ways, people are an easier product than drugs and
arms."
Estimates - which are notoriously difficult
to calculate - put the profits of the industry at $31.6bn (£16bn; 21.6bn
euros) per year, making it the third largest shadow economy - after drugs and
arms.
Locked up
Penny was told the journey to the UK would
set her back £1,000 pounds ($1,968; 1,347 euros).
But the fact that she didn't have the sum
wasn't a problem. She was told she would be given both a place to stay and a
job when she arrived, enabling her to pay the money back.
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If
you make money out of illegal products then, in some ways, people are an
easier product than drugs and arms
Ruth
Dearnley, Stop the Traffik
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But the reality was very
different.
"I ended up going with him to his
place," she said. "I stayed with him that day. After four days he
came on to me and started demanding sex. I refused, I didn't think that was
the kind of deal I had with him."
"He forced himself on to me, started
raping me. From that day, for about two weeks, it would just be daily."
Soon, he brought men with him and Penny was
forced to have sex with them too.
Low priority
Once, she tried to escape, but he tracked
her down and beat her badly, locking her in the flat.
By the end, she remembers: "I was
under his control - mentally, physically, I was under his control. I couldn't
even sneeze without him knowing."
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52%
of those recruiting victims are men
49%
of profit generated in industrialised economies
Most
trafficked people aged 18-24
1.2m
children trafficked per year
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Even once someone has
managed to escape the traffickers' trap, British campaigners say authorities
are far more concerned about their status as an illegal immigrant, than as a
trafficked person.
Penny, for example - repeatedly imprisoned
for not having the right paperwork - is convinced the man who trafficked her
is still plying his trade, unmolested by the authorities.
"The policeman said, 'It's not him,
it's you we have to deal with,'" she said. "I told them his
address. They had everything. They weren't interested."
Nimble fingers
Crystal Amiss, of London's Black Women's
Rape Action Project, said that frequently women's accounts of being
trafficked are ignored when they emerge from the underworld and seek asylum.
"The priority is to stop people coming
into the country. They are determined to have robust immigration controls and
it is very easy to target people who have to work clandestinely," she
said.
It is not just the sex industry that is fed
by traffickers, though the UN estimates that 43% of those trafficked are used
for forced commercial sexual exploitation.
Workers are also exploited in the
international textile, food and drink industries, often in the developing
world, Mr Costa says.
Campaigners say, for example, that an
estimated 12,000 children are still employed in the Ivory Coast's cocoa
plantations.
Hundreds are sold by their parents to work
underwater for fishermen on Ghana's Lake Volta, where their nimble fingers
untangle trapped nets.
The final and common link at the end of a
long and complex chain, Mr Costa says, is exploitation.
"What
counts mostly is the exploitation that takes place at several points along
the chain as the human trafficking takes place and that is repetitive and
prolonged. That is where most of the violence takes place."
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