A Quarter Century Later – Still Fighting for Freedom

Twenty-five years ago, the world came together to declare that no person should ever be bought, sold, or coerced. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in 2000 and the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol laid the moral and legal foundation of this promise.

Today, as the 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) marks this milestone, it tells both a story of progress and an uncomfortable truth — human trafficking has changed shape, but not lost strength.

For Bahifazat, this is not just an international report. It is a mirror reflecting the realities we confront daily — from bonded labor in hidden workshops to the silent suffering of children pushed into exploitation. Behind every statistic lies a human story that deserves to be heard.

The Faces Behind the Crime

The report defines trafficking not as movement across borders, but as coercion and control — a deliberate theft of human freedom.

• When a woman is deceived with a false job offer and forced into sex work, that is sex trafficking.

• When a man is trapped in endless debt at a brick kiln or factory, that is forced labor.

• When a child is denied school, food, or rest to earn for others, that is forced child labor.

These crimes often unfold in plain sight — in homes, streets, construction sites, and cyberspace — hidden not by distance, but by indifference.

In the United States alone, the report highlights record-high global convictions for labor trafficking in 2025, while more than 102,000 victims were identified worldwide last year. Every one of them once believed they were free.

Pakistan’s Place in the Global Picture

The TIP Report places Pakistan in Tier 2, meaning the country does not yet meet the minimum international standards but is making notable efforts toward them.

This position is not a label of failure — it is a reminder of responsibility. It reflects real progress through laws, awareness campaigns, and cross-border collaboration, but also points to what still breaks the system:

• Victims who are punished before being protected.

• Survivors who remain unseen in villages, factories, and digital spaces.

• Gaps in trauma-informed care and survivor reintegration.

Bahifazat believes Pakistan’s journey toward Tier 1 begins in the same place every journey toward justice begins — listening to survivors, empowering communities, and refusing silence.

When Victims Are Treated as Criminals

One of the most powerful sections of the 2025 TIP Report addresses forced criminality — a growing form of trafficking where victims are compelled to commit crimes for their traffickers’ gain.

Imagine a young man lured by an online job offer and then beaten into running cyber scams, or a child forced to beg on a highway while his earnings are taken by others. These are not criminals — they are victims trapped in invisible prisons.

Globally, scam operations generated an estimated $25–64 billion in 2023, with victims working under violence, fear, and deprivation. The report urges governments to adopt the non-punishment principle: no victim should be penalized for crimes committed under coercion.

This principle guides Bahifazat’s advocacy with law enforcement — that protection must always come before prosecution.

Technology: The New Battlefield

The 2025 TIP Report calls artificial intelligence both a blessing and a threat.

Traffickers now use AI-generated images, deepfakes, and multilingual chatbots to manipulate and groom victims. Over 20,000 AI-generated child abuse images were discovered on a single dark-web forum in 2024.

Yet the same technology can also be used for good — to trace suspicious online patterns, detect exploitative ads, and educate potential victims in their own language.

Bahifazat views AI not as a distant concept but as an immediate frontier for safety. Every awareness post, hotline, and public message we create must also speak to the digital generation — because exploitation has gone online, and protection must follow.

The Economics of Exploitation

The report reveals that 17.4 million people are exploited through forced labor in the private economy, while 3.9 million more suffer under state-imposed forced labor. Together, these injustices generate $236 billion in illegal profits every year — money earned from stolen childhoods and broken families.

Global supply chains, from seafood to cotton, often hide this abuse. The report praises growing legal bans on imports made with forced labor, such as the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930 and the EU Forced Labor Regulation (2024).

For Pakistan, this global movement is a call to ensure that no product exported from our soil — whether fabric, brick, or grain — carries the unseen fingerprints of exploitation.

Listening to Survivors

The most hopeful part of the 2025 TIP Report is its call for survivor leadership. Survivors are not statistics; they are experts with lived experience.

In the United States and several other countries, survivor advisory councils now guide national policies — a model Bahifazat strongly supports. Policies made for survivors must also be made with them.

True prevention begins when survivors help design protection systems that actually work.

When Governments Fail, People Must Not

The report warns that some governments themselves perpetuate trafficking — using forced labor as punishment, exploiting minorities, or compelling citizens to work abroad under coercive contracts.

This is not just a failure of governance; it is a betrayal of humanity. Ending human trafficking requires governments to lead by example, not profit from the crime.

Why the Fight Is Far from Over

Human trafficking adapts quickly — to wars, disasters, poverty, and now technology. The 2025 TIP Report reminds us that 58 percent of trafficking victims are exploited within their own country.

That means the problem is not “somewhere else.” It is here — in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our digital spaces.

But hope lies in collaboration. The report celebrates record global prosecutions, record victim identifications, and the highest ever number of survivor-led initiatives. Each of these victories, small or large, represents a person reclaiming dignity.

Bahifazat’s Way Forward

In light of the 2025 TIP Report, Bahifazat commits to expanding its work through:

• Awareness and prevention: reaching students, workers, and communities with simple, life-saving knowledge.

• Victim-centered policing: training officers to recognize victims, not criminalize them.

• Digital vigilance: using data and technology ethically to identify risks and support survivors.

• Survivor inclusion: ensuring lived experience guides every policy conversation.

Our mission remains clear: to make Pakistan a land where freedom is not a privilege, but a right protected by all.

Conclusion: The Next Chapter of Hope

The 2025 TIP Report closes with an inspiring thought — that the anti-trafficking movement, though challenged, is stronger than ever. Every conviction, every rescued child, every informed citizen contributes to a chain of protection that can one day outlast the crime itself.

Bahifazat stands with that vision.
We believe that the fight against trafficking is not only a legal struggle, but a moral one — a promise to protect humanity’s most sacred gift: freedom.

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References

• U.S. Department of State. Trafficking in Persons Report 2025. Washington D.C., June 2025.

• International Labour Organization. Global Estimates of Modern Slavery (2024).

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Tariff Act (1930), Section 307.

• European Union Regulation on Prohibiting Products Made with Forced Labor (2024).