While there is a clear distinction between human trafficking and migrant smuggling, they can also be linked. Human trafficking occurs for specific purposes, such as sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, forced criminality, and organ removal, among other forms of exploitation.

Migrant smugglers take advantage of people who want to leave their home countries to escape poverty, conflict, and crises, or simply want to seek a better life. Even if irregular migrants generally enter into the journey voluntarily, they are often exposed to significant risks, including that of being trafficked, kidnapped or dying in transit to their destinations.

At INTERPOL, we offer a range of services including training, databases and operational support to to help law enforcement agencies around the world increase their capacity to detect and investigate these crimes, while protecting victims and vulnerable people.