UN gets new legal tool to fight human trafficking

The text is the UN's first legal tool to fight human trafficking and urges cooperation between member states to "prevent, fight and punish" the practice that sees three to four million women and children sold into forced labour or prostitution every year.

It was adopted in the National Assembly in November 2000 and has been ratified by some 50 countries.

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Trafficking has become almost as lucrative as the trade in drugs and arms. The US state department recently estimated that selling women and children as sex workers has become a business worth seven to 10 billion dollars.

And, as with weapons and drugs, the nature of dealing in human beings makes it difficult and expensive to curb.

Traders profit from loopholes and differences in laws from country to country and a lack of cooperation between national authorities.

According to a report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) published in December, the 200,000 women and children from eastern Europe who are forced into prostitution in the West every year are becoming harder to indentify and therefore more isolated and vulnerable.

As a result the European Union has decided to give temporary residence permits to those victims who agree to work with the police and justice officials to dismantle trafficking networks.

The Indian subcontinent is one of the regions where traffic is growing most rapidly, along with central Europe and Russia. Young girls kidnapped in Nepal and Bangladesh are sold to brothels in India for around 1,000 dollars.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) says in central and east Africa there is another dimension to human trafficking with some 50,000 kidnapped every year and forced to fight in guerrilla armies.