Research, court cas­es, and tes­ti­monies from sur­vivors indi­cate that dis­abil­i­ty is a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty fac­tor to traf­fick­ing in human beings. The pro­posed side event aims to shed light on this crit­i­cal issue, raise aware­ness among stake­hold­ers, inform on the research the OSCE is car­ry­ing out, and accel­er­ate action­able solutions.

The OSCE 2021 Sur­vey Report iden­ti­fied spe­cif­ic tar­get­ing of peo­ple with developmental/physical dis­abil­i­ties by traf­fick­ers as an emerg­ing trend. Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by OSCE par­tic­i­pat­ing States in the sur­vey regard­ing traf­fick­ing involv­ing per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, 13 out of 41 respond­ing States (31%) report­ed cas­es in their judi­cial process­es or under inves­ti­ga­tion, and in five of these thir­teen coun­tries, NGOs stat­ed that they had reports of traf­fick­ers tar­get­ing peo­ple with disabilities.

Wars and con­flicts fur­ther exac­er­bate the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, includ­ing height­ened expo­sure to risks of human traf­fick­ing. For exam­ple, a 2023 OCHA report esti­mates that 15% of 15.4 mil­lion indi­vid­u­als in Ukraine in need of pro­tec­tion ser­vices have a dis­abil­i­ty and that women and girls with dis­abil­i­ties are at high risk of human trafficking.

To strength­en the evi­dence base of crit­i­cal issues faced by per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties as vic­tims of traf­fick­ing, the OSCE Office of the Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Co-ordi­na­tor for Com­bat­ing Traf­fick­ing in Human Beings is research­ing the inter­sec­tion between dis­abil­i­ties and human traf­fick­ing in the OSCE region. The research aims to pro­vide an overview of the links between dis­abil­i­ties and traf­fick­ing in human beings, how per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties are affect­ed by traf­fick­ing, and to what extent legal stan­dards, pol­i­cy frame­works, and anti-traf­fick­ing mea­sures inte­grate con­cerns asso­ci­at­ed with disabilities.