FACTS AND FIGURES

Worldwide, it is estimated that somewhere between 700,000 and four million women, children and men are trafficked each year, and no region is unaffected.
UNICEF reports that across the world, there are over one million children entering the sex trade every year and that approximately 30 million children have lost their childhood through sexual exploitation over the past 30 years.


In India:

More than 2.3 million girls and women are believed to be in the sex industry, and experts believe that more than 200,000 persons were trafficked into, within, or through the country annually.

There are approximately three million trafficking victims in the country, and only two thousand rescues a year.

Women's rights organizations and NGOs estimated that more than 12,000 and perhaps as many as 50,000 women and children were trafficked into the country annually from neighboring states for commercial sexual exploitation.

According to an International Labor Organization (ILO) estimate, 15 percent of the country's estimated 2.3 million prostitutes were children, while the UN reported that an estimated 40 percent of prostitutes were below 18 years of age.

Tribal persons made up a large proportion of the women forced into sexual trafficking.

Foremost among the health risks of prostitution is premature death.

In a recent US study of almost 2,000 prostitutes followed over a 30-year period, by far the most common causes of death were homicide, suicide, drug and alcohol related problems, HIV infection and accidents - in that order. The homicide rate among active female prostitutes was 17 times higher than that of the age-matched general population.

89% of 785 people in prostitution from nine countries wanted to escape prostitution.

75% of those in prostitution have been homeless at some point in their lives.

68% of 827 people in several different types of prostitution in 9 countries met criteria for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The severity of PTSD symptoms of participants in this study were in the same range as treatment-seeking combat veterans, battered women seeking shelter, rape survivors, and refugees from state-organized torture.