By Wendy Anders

Interpol estimates that human trafficking earns between $5-6 billion a year, said EFE today.

The United Nations Fund for Children said in a statement today that an estimated 500,000 children used traffickers to reach Europe over the past year and a half, reported EFE today.

Meanwhile, the United States Department of States placed Costa Rica on its Tier 2 Watch List for the second consecutive year, stated the U.S. State Department in their 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report published on their website.

The State Department annually ranks countries on their complicance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Tier 1 countries have full compliance, and TVPA Tier 3 countries do not comply with minimum standards and are not making an effort to do so.

According to this year’s State Department report on Costa Rica:

“Costa Rica is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Costa Rican women and children are subjected to sex trafficking within the country, with those living in the north and central Pacific coastal zones being particularly vulnerable. Authorities have identified adults using children to transport or sell drugs; some of these children may be trafficking victims. There are a significant number of transgender Costa Ricans in the commercial sex industry who are vulnerable to sex trafficking. Costa Rican victims of sex and labor trafficking were identified in The Bahamas and Guatemala during the reporting period. Women and girls from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and other Latin American countries have been identified in Costa Rica as victims of sex trafficking and domestic servitude.”

And across the Atlantic, UNICEF spokeswoman Sarah Crowe explained that nearly 590,000 minors have filed an application for asylum in the European Union in the past 18 months.

The estimate is based on data from Europol, Interpol and information from other U.N. agencies.
100,000 of these asylum applications were filed by unaccompanied children, although Crowe added that the figure is likely higher because of the different registration systems in countries.

Given this figure and the fact that Europol-Interpol believes that 90 percent of journeys made by refugees in Europe is done with the help of traffickers.