WUNRN
Website of UN Special Rapporteur on
Trafficking in Persons, Especially in Women & Children
SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON TRAFFICKING IN
PERSONS REPORT TO THE UN 2014
E. Attention to causes and vulnerability
factors
1.
The
mandate holders have been mindful that prevention of future trafficking must be
based on a thorough and nuanced understanding of the root causes of this
phenomenon, including the factors that make some people more vulnerable than
others to exploitation related to trafficking. Such an understanding also helps
to guide more effective responses, for example by helping to identify persons
and groups at risk of trafficking and by shaping public and official
understanding about how trafficking happens and why. Furthermore, attention to
underlying causes helps to counteract the prevailing narrative in reporting on
these issues, dominated by sensationalist stories about victims of trafficking,
which routinely overlook the underlying social and economic factors that led to
the violation of their human rights (A/67/261, para. 42).
2.
During
the first decade of the mandate, the mandate holders have consistently sought
to identify those factors that contribute to increasing the vulnerability to
trafficking of an individual or a group. The work of the mandate has revealed
consistency across all regions and all manifestations of trafficking with
regard to the factors that include human rights violations associated with (a)
poverty and inequality, (b) migration and (c) discrimination, including through
gender-based violence. Critically, there is almost never a single root cause;
as the Special Rapporteur has noted, “it is the combination of multiple factors
that may place certain individuals at a higher risk of being trafficked”
(A/65/288, para. 26). The Special Rapporteur has maintained throughout that
States have a legal obligation to work to prevent trafficking by addressing
vulnerability. That obligation is part of international treaty law and has been
regularly affirmed by the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly,[1][1] as well as by the
human rights treaty bodies.
