1.2 Million children worldwide are trafficked every year.
Source: Hagemann, Frank, et al., “Every Child Counts: New Global Estimates on Child Labour,” International Labour Organization, Geneva, 2002, page 6
300,000 children nationwide are at risk of falling victim to some form of commercial sexual exploitation.
Source: Estes, Richard J. and Neil Alan Weiner, “The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children In the U. S., Canada and Mexico”, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2001
14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the U.S. each year.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Report to Congress on Assessment of U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2004, page 9
43% of CSEC victims in Los Angeles engaged in survival sex (i.e., the exchange of a sexual favor for money, food, a place to stay, clothes, and/or drugs)
Source: Kipke, M., S. O’Conner, R. Palmer, and R. MacKenzie, “Street Youth in Los Angeles: Profile of a Group At High Risk for Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection”, Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, Los Angeles 1995, pages 513-519
45% of CSEC victims in New York City were exploited in hotels by their customers.
Source: Ric Curtis, et al., “The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City”,
The Center for Court Innovation, New York City, 2008
98% of commercial sexual exploitation victims worldwide are female.
Source: “ILO Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings”, International Labor Organization, Geneva, 2008
95% of all trafficking victims experience physical or sexual violence
Source: Zimmerman, Cathy et al., “Stolen Smiles: A summary Report on the Physical and Psychological Health Consequences of Women and Adolescents trafficked in Europe”, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, 2006
25% of sex tourists abusing children outside the United States are American and Canadian.
Source: ECPAT-USA
There are a startling array of contradictory and unconfirmed statistics about the scale of human trafficking, child trafficking and sexual exploitation of children. There have been a number of attempts by agencies, academic institutions and research organizations to provide good data, but the numbers are still often in dispute. No doubt it is difficult and expensive to count the number of child trafficking victims and human trafficking overall as it is an underground, criminal enterprise. The statistics on this page represent what ECPAT-USA believes are the most credible, based on our knowledge of the organizations and individuals who have published them.