Europe — Migrant Vulnerability to Human Trafficking and Exploitation (December 2017)

This report examines migrants’ vulnerability to human trafficking and exploitation by exploring risk and protective factors associated with unsafe migration, through the systematic evidence collected by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Displacement Tracking Matrix operations in 2016. It presents the results from the largest existing set of survey data on the vulnerability of migrants to abuse, exploitation and human trafficking on the Mediterranean routes to Europe. Data derive from interviews conducted over a one-year period with more than 16,000 migrants in seven countries, namely, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. More than one third (37%) of all interviewed migrants had a personal experience that indicated the presence of human trafficking or other exploitative practices along the route. Seventy-three per cent of migrants interviewed along the Central Mediterranean route presented at least one indicator of exploitation, along with 14 per cent of migrants interviewed along the Eastern Mediterranean route.