World Day Against Trafficking in Persons

Human trafficking is a global emergency. Every year on July 30th, we mark World Day Against Trafficking in Persons to highlight the increasing prevalence of human trafficking. And every year, traffickers exploit more people – across greater distances, using more violence, and for longer periods – than ever before. This devastating crime is driven by organised networks and enabled by systemic failures in law, policy, and protection.

What’s the issue?

• Sex trafficking remains one of the most entrenched and gendered forms of human trafficking, with women and girls making up the vast majority of victims.
• Survivors – particularly adult women – are often wrongly perceived as complicit in their exploitation. This false narrative ignores the coercion, manipulation, and systemic inequalities and vulnerabilities traffickers exploit, including poverty, gender-based violence, and lack of opportunity.
• New and compounding threats are worsening the problem, including online sexual exploitation and abuse, deepfake abuse, and the use of AI technologies that outpace legal safeguards.

Why it matters now

• Digital platforms, services, and emerging technologies, like AI, are being weaponised to groom, coerce, and traffic women and girls. Their limited and fragmented regulation makes it harder to hold companies that design and deploy them without adequate safeguards and the traffickers misusing them to account.
• Climate disasters and economic instability are exacerbating existing vulnerabilities – including in countries like Kenya and Malawi – that traffickers exploit.
• Legal responses have not kept pace. Investigations remain reactive, underfunded, and fragmented. To end trafficking, we need proactive law enforcement, regional and international cooperation, targeted financial disruption, and strong survivor-centred justice systems.

What we’re doing about it

At Equality Now, we are advancing a comprehensive, ecosystem approach to ending trafficking for sexual exploitation online and offline. Our work spans research, legal reform, capacity building, and global coalition-building.

We are experts:

Explore our growing collection of research, policy briefs, legal tools, and survivor testimonies including:

• Reports on sexual exploitation laws across regions
• Bench books and judicial tools for strengthening survivor-centred judicial responses
• Briefing papers on emerging tech-facilitated harms
• Survivor-led storytelling and advocacy resources

Explore our key resources:

• Ending Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Women and Girls: A Call for International Standards
• Deepfake, Image-Based Sexual Abuse, and Tech-Facilitated Sexual Exploitation: A Legal Briefing
• Kenya Judicial Bench Book on Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation
• Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in India
• Coming soon: Reports on the lived experiences of survivors of online sexual exploitation and abuse in India, Kenya, and the United States
  

We are convenors:

Our approach is grounded in collaboration with survivors, lawmakers, law enforcement, tech platforms, and civil society. Examples include:

• Legal ecosystem convenings in Kenya on sexual exploitation
• AUDRi (Alliance for Universal Digital Rights) – advocating for a shared framework to protect rights in digital spaces
• Global coordination to ensure survivor voices shape laws and standards

What can you do?

Join the conversation

• Share our content on social media using #WorldDayAgainstTrafficking
• Join AUDRi or learn more about the UN’s campaign to ensure justice for survivors by holding perpetrators accountable and providing a victim-centred approach to protection, support, and access to justice

Share knowledge

• Repost our research and survivor testimonies
• Help us raise awareness by circulating our videos, reports, policy tools, and legal resources

Learn with us

• Sign up to receive early access to upcoming knowledge products and expert briefings
• Read our updates on efforts to reform law, expose harmful systems, and amplify survivor-led advocacy

Sign up for updates and briefings