The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on Monday that global efforts to fight human trafficking were inefficient and governments needed to try harder to tackle the issue.

No country in the world was unaffected by the trafficking of people for sexual exploitation or forced labor. Some countries did not even acknowledge that the problem affected them, the UN crime agency said in a report.

It identified 127 countries from which victims originate, mainly in Asia and Eastern Europe, as well as 98 transit countries and 137 destination areas and nations, which include the European Union, North America, the Gulf states and Japan.

"It is extremely difficult to establish how many victims there are in the world, but the number certainly runs into millions, it is difficult to name a country that is not affected in some way," said UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa.

He said efforts to battle trafficking should be coordinated and efficient, but the absence of systematic reporting by the authorities was a real problem. "Governments need to try harder," he said.

The executive director outlined three major challenges for the world's governments. One was to reduce demand, whether for cheap goods manufactured in sweatshops, under-priced commodities produced by bonded people in farms and mines, or services provided by sex slaves.

The other two were to target the criminals who profit from the vulnerability of people trying to escape from poverty, unemployment, hunger and oppression and to protect trafficking victims, especially women and children.

"Governments need to get serious about identifying the full extent of the problem so they can get serious about eliminating it," said Costa.

The UNODC report also said governments should pay attention to multinational criminal gangs who smuggle people.

Source: Xinhua