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Thematic Paper addresses the issue of victims’ assistance and protection in conflict settings, the investigations and prosecutions of cases of trafficking in persons in these contexts, and the issue of strengthening cooperation among the different actors working in conflict and post-conflict areas. Given the prevalence of trafficking in persons, especially of a transnational nature, in areas marked by armed conflict and post-conflict situations, it is important to ensure that UN and other agencies’ peacekeeping personnel deployed in field missions have the capacity to identify and report on cases of trafficking in persons, in line with their mandates. For that reason, consideration should be given to reviewing pre-deployment training curricula for field mission personnel to better address trafficking in persons. Children recruited and exploited by terrorist and violent extremist groups are not only victims of human traffick1 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2018, Thematic Paper on Countering Trafficking in Persons in Conflict Situations. GLOTiP_2018_BOOK.indb 13 17/12/2018 19:49:06 14 GLOBAL REPORT ON TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS 2018 ing but victims of violence at multiple levels as children may be used for violent purposes by the groups that recruited them. The criminal justice institutions and national authorities are often not equipped to adequately address this phenomenon. The UNODC Handbook on Children Recruited and Exploited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups2 is a tool for policy-makers and provides guidance in three main areas: (a) preventing child recruitment by terrorist and violent extremist groups; (b) identifying effective justice responses to children recruited and exploited by such groups, whether they are in contact with the justice system as victims, witnesses or alleged offenders; and (c) promoting the rehabilitation and reintegration of those children. As can be expected, many trafficking flows involve persons fleeing armed conflict and persecution towards safe destinations. Decisions on how and where to travel are also made in terms of the perceived risks along the routes and at destinations. Targeted information material that explains the risks of and possible responses to trafficking could be included in practical information given to migrants in refugee camps and along migratory routes. Addressing the problem of trafficking in persons is part of the UN Sustainable Development Agenda. Monitoring progress to achieve the targets related to trafficking in persons in the framework of the SDGs calls on countries to report the number of trafficking victims per 100,000 population, by sex, age and form of exploitation. Going beyond the counting of detected victims, to cover the victims that are not detected, is a challenge in reporting on this indicator. UNODC has successfully tested a new, innovative methodology – Multiple Systems Estimation – in four countries in Europe. The application of MSE offers countries a sound and cost-effective means of esti - mating the total number of victims (detected and not detected) and report on the SDG indicator. Scaling up the implementation of this methodology across the world will foster a more comprehensive and solid understanding of the level and trends of the trafficking problem. There remain significant knowledge gaps related to the patterns and flows of trafficking in persons. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and some parts of East Asia still lack sufficient capacity to record and share data on trafficking in persons. Qualitative research, field studies and the strengthening of national statistical sys - tems on crime and criminal justice can help fill these gaps. 2 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2017, Handbook on Children Recruited and Exploited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups: The Role of the Justice System. GLOTiP_2018_BOOK.indb 14 17/12/2018 19:49:06 15 Introduction INTRODUCTION Data and research to help tackle trafficking in persons The 2018 edition of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons is based on information collected from 142 countries, encompassing more than 94 per cent of the world’s population. This represents an improvement compared to the data coverage of the first UNODC Global Report of 2012 (132 countries) and subsequent editions. Although there have been tangible improvements in the availability of data and information on trafficking in persons, relevant gaps in knowledge affect large parts of the world. The different editions of the Global Report, including this one, are weaker in their coverage of certain parts of Africa, the Middle East, and some parts of Asia. Twenty two countries in Africa and the Middle East are among the 51 United Nations Member States for which data is still missing from the current edition of the Global Report. The others are countries in Asia and island States in the Pacific and the Caribbean. In addition, for some reporting countries in the regions mentioned above, data on the victims recorded are not systematically collected and only available for some years or for some parts of the country. In some cases, details regarding the profiles of victims or offenders are missing. This edition of the Global Report reveals that large parts of Africa and Asia are weak in detecting victims and convicting traffickers. It is not a coincidence that these are also the parts of the world where less is known about trafficking patterns and flows. Knowledge is fundamental to tailor decisive responses, and stronger national responses help to generate more knowledge about the crime. Better data and research over the past few years A brief historical analysis of the quality and quantity of trafficking data shows that better data recording systems can be established in a relatively short period of time. In 2010, when the General Assembly gave the mandate to UNODC to collect data and report about patterns and flows of trafficking in persons, the collection of international statistics on human trafficking was in its early stages. In 2009, under the auspices of the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT), UNODC published a report that included global and regional statistics on trafficking in persons3 . This report concluded that internationally standardized data were still not available at that time4 . Other global studies also reported on how research and data on this crime were sparse5 . However, numbers and estimates referring to the supposed global magnitude of the phenomenon proliferated6 . At the national level, some examples of good quality reporting on detected trafficking cases have existed since the early 2000s. The first report of the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings, for instance, was published in 20027 . The report contained data on victims detected and their profiles, as well as on offenders prosecuted and convicted of trafficking in persons. Some other national authorities were also publishing similar information on a regular basis, but these were largely the exception to a general disinterest in official statistics on trafficking in persons. In its role as guardian of the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, and from the privileged position of global observer, UNODC started to collect international statistics on this crime in 2007, and to present its analysis on the basis of this data in the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons. As stated in the methodological notes accompanying the different editions, the use of this data to conduct research on trafficking in persons has some limitations. It is not possible, for instance, to carry out cross-country comparisons. At the same time, administrative data, triangulated with qualitative information from court cases or existing literature, can be used to analyse the patterns and flows of trafficking in persons8 . Over the years, UNODC has improved the methodology and complemented the official statistics with qualitative information extracted from the narratives of investigative files. In addition, the capacity of national authorities to collect data on trafficking in persons has generally improved. In 3 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking 2009, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons. 4 Ibid., page 7 5 Laczko, F., 2002, “Human Trafficking: The Need for Better Data”, Migration Information Source; International Organization for Migration, 2005, Data and Research on Human Trafficking. 6 Feingold, D., 2005, “Think Again: Human Trafficking”, Foreign Policy, 150, 26-32; Gould, A., 2010, “From Pseudoscience to Protoscience: Estimating Human Trafficking and Modern Forms of Slavery”, Second Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking. 7 Bureau Nationaal