KATHMANDU, July 30: The World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is being observed with various awareness programmes by the United Nations member nations today.
The UN General Assembly on December 18, 2013, declared the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons and since 2014, this day has been observed every year on July 30. The day was started to promote the prevention of human trafficking, protect victims, and strengthen international cooperation to combat human trafficking.
The 2026 World Day Against Trafficking in Persons theme, "Trapped Behind the Scam," draws attention to a rapidly expanding form of human trafficking in which transnational organized crime groups exploit people to carry out industrial-scale financial fraud, the United Nations stated.
Victims are trafficked for forced criminality and compelled to participate in online scam operations. This form of exploitation is closely linked to cybercrime, financial fraud, money laundering, and corruption, demonstrating the increasingly interconnected nature of organized crime.
World Day against Trafficking in Persons marked with renewed co...
The world body said that traffickers often recruit victims through fake job advertisements that promise legitimate employment opportunities abroad. Believing they are accepting genuine work, victims travel to another country only to find themselves confined in illegal scam compounds.
Within these compounds, victims are forced to conduct cyber-enabled fraud, including romance scams, cryptocurrency fraud, and other online schemes targeting people around the world. They are kept under constant surveillance and subjected to violence, threats, debt bondage, and demanding work quotas, leaving them trapped in conditions of fear with little opportunity to escape.
A costly global crime
The UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that it estimated that scams caused between US$18 billion and US$37 billion in financial losses in East and South-East Asia in 2023 alone. A high proportion of these losses is linked to scams carried out by organized crime groups based in the region.
UNODC) is supporting countries across South-East Asia to improve victim identification, investigations and prosecutions related to trafficking for forced criminality, cyber-enabled fraud and money laundering. This includes advanced training, support for specialized taskforces and stronger cross-border cooperation.
The UN agency also advises countries on legal reforms needed to prosecute the full range of crimes connected to transnational organized crime, including large-scale money laundering, cyber-enabled crime and corruption.
Because these crimes often span multiple countries, international cooperation is essential. The United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, adopted by the General Assembly in December 2024, provides a new global framework to strengthen cooperation against digital crime, online fraud and technology-enabled organized crime.
The Convention supports faster international cooperation and more consistent collection and sharing of electronic evidence, helping authorities investigate and dismantle criminal networks operating across borders.
A call to action
On World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2026, UNODC has called for stronger action to protect victims and improve cross-border judicial and law enforcement cooperation. These efforts are essential to disrupting the organized crime groups behind trafficking-linked scam operations.
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