Is Trafficking in Human Beings Demand Driven? A Multi-Country Pilot Study

The ASEM Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2001), stressed the need to encourage research on the demand for the most common forms of exploitation of trafficked women and children, in particular for commercial sex services, and recommended a multi-country study into the demand side of trafficking as one of its follow-up actions. In response to this recommendation, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sida and Save the Children Sweden, commissioned the authors to coordinate a pilot research study on the demand underlying two sectors where the labour/services of trafficked persons are known to be subject to exploitation: prostitution and domestic work. This report sets out some of the findings of the pilot study and ongoing research concerning employer demand for domestic workers in private households, and consumer demand for commercial sexual services in selected European and Asian countries.