Abstract

Trafficking in persons is a modern form of slavery involving each year hundreds of thousands of persons - and a multibillion dollar global industry too, which largely feeds itself on the growing global market of irregular migration. Contemporary international law is the result of a long historical evolution and focuses on criminalization and prosecu-tion of traffickers, interstate cooperation in adopting preventing measures, and protection for victims of trafficking. Nowadays, human trafficking is considered and condemned in general terms, under international law, as a distinct class of conduct involving any wrongful movement or confinement of a human being for an exploitative purpose.