Poverty and human trafficking

Poverty functions as a risk factor for entry into trafficking, sustains vulnerability during exploitation, and subsequently hinders survivors’ ability to escape and recover from trafficking.

In fact, poverty has been identified as a significant contributing factor to a reported 25% increase in the number of detected victims of human trafficking between 2019 and 2022, according to the 2024 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (UNODC, 2024). 

Although poverty can be defined in several ways (see Okalow, 2023 for a detailed discussion), it is generally defined as the lack of sufficient resources to secure basic necessities, such as food, clothing, and shelter. So, how does poverty contribute to human trafficking?

Poverty contributes to the risk of human trafficking

Poverty is a key cause of human trafficking, with economic vulnerability exploited in many ways across various global contexts. For example, in Nigeria, economic hardship leads some families to place their children in foster care, after which some children are sold to traffickers. 

In some parts of India, financial inability to follow the dowry system (in which the bride’s family provides money or goods to the groom’s family) pushes some families to sell their daughters into exploitation. 

In Uganda, children have identified financial insecurity at home as contributing to their vulnerability to forced labor. In a 2020 study in the United States, among youth who were victims of domestic minor sex trafficking, 55% were either homeless or had unmet basic needs prior to being trafficked. 

Survivors of sex trafficking in Canada have described how traffickers intentionally seek youth experiencing homelessness to lure and recruit them into sex trafficking. Traffickers target these youth to exploit their experience of homelessness, but oftentimes also their isolation, loneliness, need for safety, and lack of basic needs. Individuals experiencing poverty, whether homeless or not, are more vulnerable to predatory helpfulness grooming tactics (i.e., financial assistance) that promise alleviation from their difficult living circumstances. 

Financial assistance is an established grooming tactic among sex traffickers, defined as when “targets were homeless and did not have a place to stay, exiting a program without a place to stay and already on the streets and the trafficker provided a place to stay. Also includes traffickers who supported the target financially or offered non-sex-work based employment or met other basic needs such as food, clothing, transportation.” 

For some survivors, this predatory financial assistance felt like their only option and provided a false sense of hope for a better life. They were unaware of the malicious intentions behind these offers of support.

In the current digital age, evolving strategies are being used by traffickers to recruit individuals looking to escape poverty and/or achieve financial security, such as fake employment opportunities — an increasingly common type of scam. Some of these scams result in targeted individuals being trafficked for forced criminality or sex trafficking. This is what happened to Phelipe and Luckas, two young men from Brazil who The Exodus Road helped repatriate back home after they’d been trapped in a scamming compound in Myanmar.

How poverty can lead to human trafficking

Traffickers strategically exploit poverty to recruit and maintain control over victims by creating economic dependence. Initial offers of financial assistance, housing, or food are framed as support, but are later recast as debts that must be repaid, often through coerced labour or sexual exploitation. 

Having preyed on those already experiencing poverty, traffickers are aware that victims do not have the means to pay these “debts.” This form of debt bondage may be used alongside deliberately restricting access to basic needs, rendering victims increasingly reliant on the trafficker for survival. Through this manufactured dependence, poverty is weaponized as both a recruitment mechanism following the grooming stage and a means of ongoing control, limiting victims’ ability to leave or seek support.

The story of Flor Molina is one of many that illustrate how poverty is both exploited and perpetuated throughout the trafficking cycle. Seeking to ease her financial hardship, Flor accepted what appeared to be a legitimate job opportunity, only to be subjected to labour trafficking. Debt bondage and threats were used to prevent her from leaving, and when she eventually escaped, she said that she “had nothing.”

Reducing poverty reduces the risk of continued exploitation and being re-trafficked

Financial dependence is a commonly reported barrier to escaping trafficking.

As shared by this survivor, financial dependence on and the financial control of traffickers translated into the threat of poverty if Flor escaped. 

With many survivors leaving trafficking situations without secure housing, support, or income, their recovery becomes challenging. Traffickers may exacerbate the problem by leaving survivors with damaged credit and significant debts, limiting their ability to get housing, employment, or financial assistance. All of this makes it harder to escape both trafficking and economic hardship.

In other cases, victims may have been trafficked for forced criminality or coerced into committing criminal acts alongside other forms of exploitation (such as sex trafficking), resulting in criminal charges, convictions, and possibly imprisonment. 

This even further restricts access to employment, social services, and legal protections. All of these circumstances leave those who have escaped trafficking vulnerable to being re-trafficked. 

This is exemplified by the story of Luiza, a survivor who was imprisoned as a result of her trafficking situation and was released from prison into homelessness and unemployment. She returned to exploitation in the sex industry until she received support from an organization that assisted survivors like her.

Anti-trafficking efforts need to address poverty

Addressing the root cause of poverty is imperative for anti-trafficking work. It ensures that survivors can avoid trafficking to begin with, rebuild their lives after abuse, and reduce their risk of future exploitation. 

For so many survivors, non-profits were key in facilitating their exit and recovery following trafficking. The aftercare programs The Exodus Road offers provide holistic support by meeting survivors’ basic needs — shelter, financial assistance, etc. — while fostering autonomy and empowering survivors to achieve long-term financial independence through education and employment training. So far, this has led to keeping more than 95% of the survivors The Exodus Road supports out of future exploitation.

One teenager living in The Exodus Road’s Freedom Home in Thailand shared the value of this support, what can happen when we interrupt the cycles of poverty and trafficking:

*Images representative