In 2023, 63.4% of registered victims of trafficking in human beings in the EU were women or girls, a small increase of 0.6 percentage points (pp) compared with 2022 (62.8%). 

The proportion of women among traffickers was much lower compared with the proportion of men. In 2023, among the suspected traffickers, 24.2% were women, up 1.0 pp compared with the previous year (23.2%) while 23.0% of those convicted were also women, an increase of 1.4 pp compared with 2022 (21.6%).

Since 2015, there has been a downward trend in the share of females among persons involved in trafficking of human beings. The most significant decrease was 14.4 pp for female victims (77.8%), followed by a drop of 6.7 pp for convicted traffickers (29.7%), while there was a smaller decline of 1.5 pp in the share of suspected traffickers (25.7%).  

This article is published on the occasion of World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, marked every year on 30 July.

Shares of females identified in human trafficking cases in the EU, 2015-2023. Bar chart - Click below to see full dataset.

Source dataset: crim_thb_sex