International Day for the Prevention of and Fight against All Forms of Transnational Organized Crime

61% of trafficking victims are women, and girls make up nearly a quarter of all detected victims. To Stop Organized Crime we must ensure prevention and response efforts address the unique risks women and girls face.

  Identifying the Emerging challenges in human trafficking: risks to gender equality & decent work. At this year’s HLPF, governments will review SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; and SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. These goals recognize that ending human trafficking is essential to achieving their aims. Human trafficking has an outsized impact on women and girls, and eliminating it is crucial for achieving SDG 5. In addition, we cannot provide decent work for all while people are forced to work without choice, through coercion and threats. This side event will focus on the SDG 5 and SDG 8 targets relating to human trafficking, assessing trends and emerging challenges. Participants will hear from governments, UN agencies and civil society organizations about the risks to achieving these goals and how to respond to them. Welcome remarks: HE Ambassador Mere...

  Analysis from the Eastern Asian State observatories on The city of Dnipro: The front line of crime , Dnipro has long played a pivotal role in Ukraine’s political and economic development. Today, the city stands at another crossroads, as a key site for understanding how organized crime has evolved under the pressures of war. This report offers a detailed account of the city’s criminal landscape, drawing on field research, interviews, and open-source analysis. The full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 has fuelled existing trends in Dnipro, a city already familiar with conflict since 2014. Dnipro’s proximity to the front line and its importance as a logistics and military hub have intensified its role in illicit markets, particularly in arms and drug trafficking. The city has also become one of the country’s most important bases for scam call centres , with around 30 000 people employed in operations that target victims across Russia, the EU and Ukraine itself. Many of these centr...

  The growth of cyber scam centres around the world is fuelling a global human trafficking crisis on a scale and organizational complexity rarely seen since the height of the transatlantic slave trade. In just a few years, hundreds of thousands of people have been transported into scam operations, many of them forced to perpetrate fraud under threat and in abusive conditions. Often hailing from countries with high unemployment rates or a surplus of tech-savvy graduates, those duped with promises of legitimate jobs may not match stereotypical images of a trafficking victim , leading both them, and those they come into contact with along their journey, to miss important red flags. But vulnerable people in unfamiliar settings, lacking support or access to their passports, are easier to manipulate, intimidate and control. Once they are inside the scam compounds where these operations are conducted, getting them out is difficult. Stopping victims from reaching compounds could be a f...

  Analyis from the European Asian States Observatories on the Future of TOC beyong the Russian/NATO War . As the conflict in Ukraine approaches a possible turning point, ‘ Crime and peace: The future of organized crime beyond the Russo-Ukrainian war ’ explores the post-conflict risks and transformations that may shape the criminal underworld in Ukraine, Russia and beyond. Drawing on three years of research by GI-TOC’s Eurasia Observatory, the report offers a thematic risk assessment, addressing five key areas: people, control, expertise, hardware, and money. Each theme reflects how new opportunities for organized crime will be generated in the event of a ceasefire or peace agreement. Key findings show that: Veterans, IDPs, refugees and those in economic hardship are vulnerable to recruitment into illicit economies, from drug and sex trafficking to ICT-enabled fraud and recruitment into organized crime. The end of martial law in Ukraine may reduce state control and allow criminal ...

  The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) was active at the CCPCJ throughout and will participate in the following events during the week, to Highlight the latest research and activities related to enhancing understanding of issues on the agenda at this year’s CCPCJ , including crime prevention and community resilience, crimes that affect the environment, organized fraud operations, youth criminality , human trafficking and other challenges. They contributed with recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of policy responses, for better impacts on communities and societies around the world. Side event: Raising awareness of the global impact of fraud . Download. Side event: Prevention of lethal violence in organized crime - focused deterrence and other preventive strategies . Download . Side event: Responding to youth criminality linked to transnational organized crime in the Nordic and Baltic regions . Download . Breakfast event: Building resilienc...

  Analysis on Security and Rights 

  Analysis from the East-Asian States Observatories on Assessing substance use in Ukraine's military forces and Governments.

  On 11 February 2025, Italian police carried out a major operation in Palermo, Sicily, targeting key mafia districts. With 1 200 officers deployed in the city and surrounding areas, and aerial surveillance to support the raids, law enforcement officers arrested over 180 people from the notorious clans that have ruled the Sicilian mafia, the Cosa Nostra, for the past two decades. European Observatories Analysis : Despite a hard blow to Cosa Nostra, the  Sicilian mafia  remains resilient.

  Building Resilience - Asia -Asia/Pacific Observatories.

Criminal organizations continue to exploit vulnerable populations for forced labor and sexual exploitation through human trafficking . According to a recent European Commission report , sexual exploitation was the most common form of trafficking in the EU during 2021–2022. Globally, forced labor is the most common form of human trafficking . According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) , an estimated 27.6 million people were in forced labor worldwide in 2021, accounting for 77% of all victims of human trafficking. Key statistics on the forms of trafficking include Forced Labor : This accounts for about 42% of victims globally (based on 2022 UN data), which includes work in private industries like agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and domestic servitude. Men and boys make up the majority of victims in this category. Sexual Exploitation : This is another major form, involving around 36% of victims globally in 2022. Women and girls are disproportionately targeted for ...

Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) involves numerous international criminal activities such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering and cybercrime.