Fact: Victims of trafficking can be men, women, or children.
“ Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation,
transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of
force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the
abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving
of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over
another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include,
at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of
sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar
to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;
Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/trafficking_human_beings.html
Fact: Traffickers often work as a part of a larger criminal organization, but some traffickers are individuals or families.
In Milan, Italy, women abducted from the countries of the former Soviet Union were auctioned on blocks, and sold at an average price of just under US$1,000.
(Michael Specter, "Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women," New York Times, 11 January 1998)
Illegal immigrants from Asia were forced into prostitution to repay a $40,000 fee for their transport. In one case in California, the women were in their late teens or twenties. Three to six women were at each house and often made as much as $5,000 a week for the traffickers.
(Midway City Police, Geoff Boucher and Steve Carney, "6 Arrested in Raid on Alleged Brothel," Los Angeles Times, 13 September 1997)
A Taiwanese man, Chen Chin En, 48, was arrested and charged with the procurement of Thai women for prostitution in Taiwan. A Thai man complained to police in July 1998, that his wife had been told by Chen she would work as a housewife in Taiwan, promising her a salary of Baht 15,000 ($380) per month. His wife had to register for a marriage certificate with another Taiwanese man in Thailand to apply for a visa. When she arrived in Taiwan she was taken to a brothel in Kaosung and forced into prostitution. Police said more than 500 Thai women had been lured into prostitution in Taiwan under the same method used by the gang.
("Taiwanese ‘procurer’ held," The Nation, 29 July 1998)
Fact: Human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry after drugs and arms.