Human traffickers are people or criminal networks who exploit people for profit using force, fraud, or coercion. They may be family members, acquaintances, employers, strangers, or organized criminal groups — most commonly, they are someone their victim knows. Traffickers often target vulnerable individuals through manipulation, deception, or violence.
A short definition from the Human Trafficking Collaborative summarizes: “Traffickers are people who decide to exploit other people to make a profit.”
Human trafficking can take many forms. For traffickers who sexually use children for personal gain, regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion is used, those actions constitute trafficking. Employers who exploit and endanger their workforce without adequately compensating them, keeping an outsized cut of the profits for their own, are also perpetrating trafficking crime.
Many myths exist about human traffickers, such as that they target people they don’t know, that they are kidnappers, or that they always operate within an organized criminal network. While all of these can be true, they are not universally accurate.
Who are human traffickers?
There is not a straightforward answer, for several reasons.
First, there is limited scientific literature that captures the characteristics of traffickers, and so data on demographics and relationships of traffickers is limited to judicial data and what is available from non-profit organizations. Since our knowledge is based on traffickers who have been caught or reported, what we know may not be fully representative of all traffickers.
Second, characteristics of traffickers can vary depending on the type of trafficking and geographic location.
Based on limited available data on traffickers, the best we can do is explore trends that have been reported and highlight the nuance in the identities and typology of traffickers.
Both men and women can be traffickers — though more cases are documented with male perpetrators
Multiple U.S. studies based on judicial data have found that the majority of traffickers are men, with proportions ranging from 83% to 96%.
Similarly, on a global scale, most traffickers have been found to be men. A global dataset from the Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC), representing over 17,000 survivors of trafficking across 123 countries and territories and accounts of more than 37,000 perpetrators involved in the trafficking process between 2005 and 2022, found that 78% of traffickers were male and 38% were female.
That dynamic holds up in the cases that The Exodus Road works globally. In 2025, although the majority of perpetrators were men, close to 40% of traffickers in cases that The Exodus Road’s investigators worked on were women, .
While the majority of traffickers are men, it is important to bring attention to the significant number of women who are perpetrators of human trafficking. Because dominant depictions of human trafficking portray traffickers as men, women traffickers may be less visible to law enforcement. This invisibility and gendered stereotype may enable them to recruit victims – and get away with it – more easily.
In a 2010 study in the Netherlands, women played three distinct roles in trafficking:
- Supporters: these women played a supporting role in the trafficking operation, including supervising and giving instructions to victims. These women played this role out of emotionally manipulated dependence on the trafficker, false loyalty, or fear of retribution. Their participation was often forced and primarily benefited the trafficker(s).
- Partners-in-Crime: these women joined their partner — an intimate partner or business partner — and voluntarily participated in a human trafficking operation. Partners had either equal or distinct responsibilities and profited the same.
- “Madams:” madams led their own human trafficking networks, whether it was a small group or an internationally operating organization. Madams gave orders to others in the network, coordinated the human trafficking operation, managed the victims, and controlled the finances.
Other examples of women’s involvement in human trafficking around the world can be found in a 2020 article by McCarthy, who shares a gendered perspective on human trafficking.
Are traffickers usually strangers?
Contrary to popular belief, it’s rare to be trafficked by a stranger. Based on 2021 data from 10,359 trafficking situations involving 16,554 potential victims reported to the U.S.-based National Human Trafficking Hotline, most traffickers were actually known to the victims.
Relationships victims had to their traffickers:
- 33% were a family member or caregiver
- 28% were an intimate partner
- 22% were an employer
- 10% were a stranger/another kind of relationship
Notably, for both sex and labor trafficking, the most commonly reported recruitment location in the United States was the internet.
To note, the percentages for gender and relationship do not add up to 100% as victims may have been trafficked by multiple perpetrators.
Family Members
Family members such as parents, siblings, or extended relatives (e.g., uncles and cousins) may exploit children within the family unit by forcing them into labor or sex trafficking.
Data from Polaris indicated that family members and caregivers were the most common recruiters into sex trafficking. In many cases, these children have already been subjected to abuse within the home by the same individuals and/or are trafficked to support a family member’s substance use.
Although children who are trafficked may be very young or adolescents, familial trafficking can also occur among adult victims. In some parts of the world, parents sell their children for illegal adoption or push them into a forced marriage.
Intimate Partners
Intimate partners may exploit emotional bonds to manipulate, coerce, or control individuals into trafficking. The following article by The Exodus Road details trafficking within the context of domestic violence and the strategies used by traffickers who are also intimate partners.
Peers and Acquaintances
Friends, peers, or community members may recruit individuals through shared social networks, often presenting opportunities that seem trustworthy. This pathway is particularly relevant for youth, including in the context of online exploitation and recruitment.
Employers
Employers are the most common recruiters into labor trafficking, according to Polaris data. In the case of trafficked migrant workers, it is increasingly recognized that third-party labor recruiters in migrant victims’ countries of origin are one of the main entry points into human trafficking. These recruiters contact potential victims through personal contact, newspaper, internet, or TV ads to bring them into various labor sectors including agriculture, fishing and aquafarming, construction, hospitality, manufacturing, and domestic work.
Employers may exploit individuals in labor contexts by abusing authority, restricting autonomy, and exploiting the legal status of workers.
Organized Criminal Networks
Trafficking can also be carried out by coordinated groups ranging from small networks to large international criminal organizations. These networks may operate locally or across borders, often involving multiple individuals who facilitate different stages of exploitation.
An increasingly common form of trafficking conducted by organized networks is forced criminality, such as when victims are lured by promises of a well-paying job in a foreign country only to be coerced into committing criminal activities like digitally scamming others out of money.
Who is most likely to be a trafficker?
Ultimately, human traffickers are not a single, easily identifiable “type.” Anyone can traffic and exploit others.
Traffickers can be men and women from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, of varied ages and professions, and either related or unrelated to the victims. Especially in lower-income communities where poverty drives trafficking, a perpetrator may have previously been a victim of trafficking themselves.
Traffickers can be part of an organized criminal network wherein multiple individuals perform roles in the process of human trafficking, such as recruitment, transportation, training, and intimidating victims. In other cases, a single individual may perform all roles in the trafficking process.
Recognizing this complexity is key to addressing the issue.
Misconceptions about who human traffickers are can have serious consequences, preventing timely recognition and intervention when exploitation is occurring. Despite the urgent need for additional information about who traffickers are and what is motivating them, there is still a deep need for more research.
What does the variety of trafficker types look like in real cases?
As a global anti-trafficking nonprofit with 15+ years of experience, The Exodus Road has witnessed the reality of varied trafficker types firsthand. As our teams have partnered with law enforcement globally to investigate trafficking cases and support arrests, they have encountered traffickers from a wide range of backgrounds — both individuals acting alone and members of organized networks.
For example, in the cases that The Exodus Road has worked between 2023-2025, consistently about 2/3 of traffickers arrested have been women. Our teams have also observed the prevalence of individuals becoming part of a larger network of perpetrators; in 2025 alone, The Exodus Road assisted in dismantling 36 networks of traffickers.
For more on what The Exodus Road has learned about human trafficking trends from our most recent data, read on for our 2025 trafficking trends report.
