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In 1998, the International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI) began examining the trafficking of women and children for purposes of sexual exploitation within a human rights framework. Its research targeted international reports on trafficking by various United Nations bodies and Special Rapporteurs as well as existing national laws. A review of these efforts and a study of the publicly available literature on the subject suggested that a global approach was needed for an appropriate understanding of the phenomenon that could take into account various cultural, economic, and geographic differences.

IHRLI’s global research perspective highlighted the common elements of this practice to modern-day slavery and its consequences for every nation. It also underscored the need to establish and support a worldwide response regime to this human rights, social, and criminal problem.

Several important steps were taken in recent years to build momentum for an international response. The international community ratified the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2000), which entered into force on September 29, 2003, and its supplemental Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000), which entered into force December 25, 2003. In 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a set of universally applicable Recommended Principles and Guidelines for Human Rights and Human Trafficking. [Download]