INTERPOL revealed on Monday that national authorities from 39 countries coordinated a large-scale operation targeting the criminal networks behind human trafficking which resulted in 219 arrests and the identification of 1,374 potential victims including 153 children. The operation, codenamed GLOBAL CHAIN, was led by Austria and involved coordination with Romania, FRONTEX, Europol, and INTERPOL.

This operation included law enforcement action in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. As a result, a total of 362 suspects have been identified, with over 2000 criminal assets seized, 363 fraudulent documents detected, and 276 new investigations commenced.

Human trafficking is a “process through which individuals are placed or maintained in an exploitative situation for economic gain”. Human trafficking exists in all of the world’s regions and often involves people who are vulnerable because of poverty, violence, and discrimination.

While several international legal instruments are utilized to combat human trafficking, the most important is the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women, and Children. In particular, Article 5 obliges states to adopt whatever measures are necessary to criminalize the trafficking of human beings, including the criminalization of trafficking activities committed outside of a country’s national territory. This protocol has been signed by 117 countries and supplements the UN ‘Palermo’ Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), which is an international legal instrument that was created in 2000 to “promote cooperation to prevent and combat transnational organized crime more effectively”.

This particular international operation was also designed to draw the attention of national authorities, the public, and external stakeholders to the crime of human trafficking.