Necesidades de datos sobre la trata de personas y retos en ese ámbito

El primer objetivo del Pacto Mundial para la Migración es “[r]ecopilar y utilizar datos exactos y desglosados para formular políticas con base empírica”. Las metas establecidas en los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible ponen de relieve la necesidad de fortalecer los esfuerzos para recabar datos útiles.

  • El indicador 16.2.2 es el “número de víctimas de la trata de personas por cada 100.000 habitantes, desglosado por sexo, edad y tipo de explotación”, lo que apunta a la necesidad de conseguir datos mejores y debidamente desglosados.
  • La meta 17.8 pide a los Estados que aumenten la disponibilidad de datos de buena calidad sobre la migración a fin de cuantificar mejor los esfuerzos realizados para cumplir la meta 8.7 y poner fin a la trata de personas. La mejor forma de respaldar estos esfuerzos es aplicar criterios de medición normalizados para cuantificar la trata (OIM, 2018a: 112).

Adoptar medidas inmediatas y eficaces para erradicar el trabajo forzoso, poner fin a las formas contemporáneas de esclavitud y la trata de personas y asegurar la prohibición y eliminación de las peores formas de trabajo infantil. (Meta 8.7)

Necesidad de un trabajo eficaz de recopilación de datos, investigación y análisis sobre la trata de personas

La comunidad internacional convino en que los datos relacionados con la migración podían ser importantes para las políticas sobre la trata de personas y ayudar a entender las tendencias y los flujos de este fenómeno y sus dimensiones regionales.

Aunque los migrantes regulares también pueden ser víctimas de la trata, la prevalencia de las entradas no autorizadas y las poblaciones de migrantes irregulares pueden estar relacionadas con la trata de personas

 

Example
Migration-related data interlinkage with human trafficking

In Southeast Asia, many migrants face exploitation stemming from their irregular status, with migrant workers facing forced labour, exploitation and abuse in particular industries including fishing, agriculture, construction and manufacturing. 

Fuente

IOM, 2018c: 63

Additionally, understanding new trafficking patterns and trends is important for:

  • shaping policies;
  • setting priorities and strategically allocating funds;
  • strategically directing resources;
  • assessing the effectiveness of counter-trafficking efforts.

The challenges to effective data collection, research and analysis on trafficking in persons

  • Human trafficking is a clandestine and underreported activity, which makes it difficult to collect systematic data.
  • Data on transnational trafficking are more difficult as States may define trafficking differently and disaggregate data in inconsistent ways. Some States relate trafficking to other concepts such as slavery and forced labour which results in different estimates of how common its occurrence is. This underlines once again the need to bring national legislations in line with the Trafficking Protocol.
  • Counter-trafficking actors who provide protection and assistance services to trafficked persons are likely to gather and have access to significant amounts of personal data. Therefore, it is important to have a data protection framework in place in order to safely and securely share data relating to human trafficking. (Read more on Data protection in Chapter Stage 2: Data, Research and Analysis for Policymaking.)
  • Third party requests to access personal data of victims for victim assistance or as part of efforts to combat human trafficking must be approved only with the consent of the data subject, and only if there is a specified and legitimate purpose for sharing the information that does not put the victim of trafficking at any additional risk.
 
Fuentes de datos sobre la trata de personas

Datos sobre los casos detectados y denunciados de trata de personas

Las víctimas identificadas figuran entre las principales fuentes de datos sobre la trata. Los actores estatales (como las fuerzas del orden y el poder judicial) y los agentes no estatales (como las organizaciones internacionales y no gubernamentales que prestan servicios a las víctimas) recopilan datos sobre los casos de trata detectados y denunciados y los mantienen en diversas bases de datos.

A nivel nacional, los datos sobre los casos detectados y denunciados pueden ser compilados y comunicados por un órgano central en el marco de un proceso nacional de presentación de informes. Ese órgano central podría, por ejemplo, tener la responsabilidad de gestionar el mecanismo nacional de remisión, y de supervisar también el mecanismo nacional de presentación de informes.

Los informes oficiales sobre esos datos administrativos compilados por los gobiernos u otros órganos centralizados sobre los casos de trata de personas son una fuente fundamental de información acerca de este fenómeno. En los últimos años han venido aumentando los esfuerzos para poner a disposición esos datos agregados de manera segura.

 
Example
Global datasets on trafficking in persons

Policymakers can access up-to-date, reliable data on more than 110,000 individual cases of trafficking. The CTDC is the largest data set of its kind, equipping policymakers with insight into global, regional and national trafficking trends as a basis for developing evidence-based policy. The anonymized data are presented in a way that counter-trafficking actors, including immigration authorities and policymakers, can visualize and download. It shows them  data on trafficking routes affecting their country, including where trafficked victims are coming from and where their own citizens are being exploited. Information about profiles of victims is also available, and the industries in which they were exploited, and the methods used to traffic them.

UNODC compiled data from publicly available official information, and from a common questionnaire distributed to governments, for its global report on trafficking in persons. The most recent version was published in 2018 and features data collected from 142 governments on more than 24,000 detected victims (UNODC, 2018d). In practice, data are not available for all countries or locations and, where data do exist, they are not always comprehensive in terms of coverage of a given country or location.

 

The data that can be gathered are on identified victims, which means that large quantities of data do not necessarily indicate widespread human trafficking. On the contrary, they could indicate effective counter-trafficking responses. However, these data provide useful insight into trafficking trends and patterns, such as the profiles and experiences of the victims, the forms of human trafficking, trafficking routes and information on perpetrators.

Estimating prevalence

There are currently no global or regional estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking. Multiple systems estimation (MSE) is used to estimate the total number (unidentified as well as identified) of victims of trafficking at the country level, on the basis of analysis of lists of detected or presumed victims of trafficking, provided by different counter-trafficking actors including police, prosecutors, migration authorities, victim-assistance providers, shelters and others. Provided lists may be anonymized and are disaggregated by age, gender and type of exploitation (UNODC, 2018d: 34).

 
Good Practice
Application of the multiple systems estimation methodology in some countries

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in cooperation with the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children, used multiple systems estimation (MSE) to estimate the number of presumed victims in the Netherlands in 2010–2015. The United Kingdom Home Office also conducted a similar exercise, and other similar studies have been conducted in Ireland, Romania and Serbia, in cooperation with the Walk Free Foundation.

Recopilación, gestión y protección de los datos generados en la lucha contra la trata

Las entidades de lucha contra la trata que prestan servicios de protección y asistencia a las víctimas recabarán seguramente cantidades importantes de datos personales, o tendrán acceso a ellas.

El modo en que se recopilen los datos dependerá de la entidad de que se trate y del papel que desempeñe en la protección de las víctimas y en la prestación de asistencia. Los datos personales sobre las distintas víctimas se reúnen normalmente en interacciones cara a cara con estas (por ejemplo, en las entrevistas de investigación realizadas por las fuerzas del orden o durante los procesos de admisión en los albergues temporales) y pueden quedar registrados en notas y bases de datos. Incluyen datos biográficos de la persona, datos sobre la remisión, la evaluación de la protección y la prestación de servicios, información básica sobre la experiencia con la trata, etc.

Policy Approaches
Collecting and sharing data on trafficking in persons
  • Equip actors who carry out data collection with knowledge on data security so they are clear on the types of data that should be collected, by what means, and for what purposes.
  • Establish and ensure the security of systems to facilitate data sharing between relevant actors, including those involved in the national referral mechanism (NRM).
  • Collect personal data only for a specified legitimate purpose and with the prior consent of the data subject. Especially in the case of victims of trafficking, because of their increased vulnerabilities and risks, data that are not necessary or foreseen for a purpose should not be collected.
  • Follow international, regional and/or national data protection rules and procedures for how to collect and manage data.
  • Encourage stakeholders to move towards standardization in data collection efforts. This includes establishing proper IT systems for managing data and developing standard operating procedures (SOPs) for data collection and sharing, as well as training staff on data collection, protection, storage and analysis. Consider how data will be shared and with whom, for what purposes they may be used, and how these uses will be governed.
  • Remove the identities of data subjects and all identifiable factors prior to any transfer or publication.
  • Have a data protection framework in place in order to safely and securely share data relating to human trafficking. Read more on Data protection in Chapter Stage 2: Data, Research and Analysis for Policymaking.
Example
When data protection standards are not upheld victims are further harmed

Where data protection and ethical standards are not upheld in data collection, there is a risk that victims of trafficking may be further harmed. This can happen when victims are asked inappropriate questions in inappropriate ways (for instance, where survivors are asked multiple times to recount their traumatic experiences, such as of torture or sexual violence, or where question are asked for the purpose of understanding the crime rather than supporting the victim) or if any personal data are collected without the victim’s informed consent. Additionally, when data is not kept secure and stored safely, victims can be exposed to risk (for instance, retaliation by traffickers). Accordingly, it is essential that any personal data is collected in ways that follow the highest ethical standards, and that the data yielded are subjected to high standards of data protection and confidentiality.

There may be times when data should not be shared. Lack of clarity about data ownership, insufficient risks assessments, and inadequate data protection frameworks can result in data being shared when they should not be. This poses a risk to the life and health of victims of trafficking, which should be avoided at all costs.

To Go Further
Mensajes clave
  • Los casos identificados y denunciados de víctimas de la trata son una buena fuente de datos, si los recopila un órgano central nacional y si incluyen no solo los datos proporcionados por las fuerzas del orden y el poder judicial, sino también los aportados por actores no estatales, como las organizaciones no gubernamentales y las organizaciones internacionales que prestan asistencia a las víctimas de la trata.
  • La estimación de sistemas múltiples (ESM) es un buen método para estimar el número total de víctimas de la trata (identificadas y no identificadas) a nivel nacional.
  • Las encuestas de hogares también pueden utilizarse, pero deben ceñirse a las normas éticas; de lo contrario, se correrá el riesgo de causar un daño adicional a las víctimas de la trata.