Although the issue of human trafficking in France began receiving political attention twenty years ago, the issue remains consistent today. France is recognized as a destination country in the trafficking of women and girls originating from Eastern Europe, generally for sexual exploitation purposes. Men, women, and children coming from African countries are brought to France for forced labor, or modern slavery, with the French government estimating almost 18,000-20,000 sex trafficking victims in the country today.

The sex trafficking industry is a huge problem in France that mainly affects victims coming from China, Bulgaria, Romania, and Nigeria. While this has been a consistent problem since 2001, the more worrying problem is the rising numbers in child trafficking, with victims generally coming from Romania, Bulgaria, and other countries in South-Eastern Europe. These children are used for forced begging and can sometimes be implicated in more serious offenses.

Roma communities sometimes provide children for recruitment into family criminal networks. Those under the age of 18 stick to pickpocketing, small theft, and similar petty crimes, usually being orchestrated by much larger mafia organizations present in many countries in Western Europe. Children tend to act under pressure from their families and carry out the tasks that are asked of them. If they disobey or fail to collect sufficient earnings, the children become victims of physical violence.

In the case of sex trafficking of women, Nigerian females make up the largest percentage in a pool of victims. Traffickers often lure women into the industry with false promises of economic opportunities and know to target people who are already in vulnerable positions, such as undocumented workers in France. According to authorities, traffickers motivate Nigerian women to claim asylum and obtain legal residency, making their prolonged exploitation a simpler process.

Women are often maintained in these circles through debt bondage, psychologic abuse and coercion, and physical violence. Some traffickers have gone as far as to implicate voodoo and drug addiction. France’s government has estimated that out of the 50,000 people currently working in commercial sex, 90% of foreigners in the industry are very likely to be victims of human trafficking.

NGOs around the world have come to the conclusion that between 5,000 and 8,000 teenagers in France are victims of child sex trafficking, the majority being between 15 and 16 years of age. One heinous example of child trafficking is the situation currently at the French island of Mayotte.

There are approximately between 3,000 and 4,000 unaccompanied Comorian children currently in Mayotte, a French department. These children run the risk of labor and sex trafficking, with protection services such as education and proper shelter remaining unavailable to minors without adults. Past efforts for the Comorian National Human Rights Commission to investigate further have been repeatedly denied.

Traffickers have also infiltrated domestic work, exploiting women and children in domestic servitude. In most cases, families exploit relatives brought from Africa to perform household work. In 2019, domestic servitude made up approximately 8% of all trafficking in France. Trafficking networks set in Nigeria tend to use drug and migrant trafficking routes that pass through countries like Libya and Italy to smuggle women and girls into France. The women and girls are then sold into the trafficking cycle.

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