SDG #16 is to “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”
Within SDG #16 are 12 targets, of which we here focus on Target 16.2:
End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children
Target 16.2 has three indicators:
Indicator 16.2.1: Proportion of children aged 1–17 years who experienced any physical punishment and/or psychological aggression by caregivers in the past month
Indicator 16.2.2: Number of victims of human trafficking per 100,000 population, by sex, age and form of exploitation
Indicator 16.2.3: Proportion of young women and men aged 18–29 years who experienced sexual violence by age 18
We explored the UN Convention on Transnational Crime in earlier targets. All countries have ratified this except Iran, Somalia, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Congo, South Sudan and two Pacific nations. One of the protocols to this convention relates to human trafficking. It's focused especially on children and women, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000. In 2010, the UN also adopted the UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons.
There are plentiful regional initiatives of countries collaborating to combat trafficking. There are also national efforts, and those under the auspices of UN Office on Drugs and Crime. This includes the illegal trafficking of human organs and tissues for transplants, or of humans for the purposes of such.
79% of children had experienced physical punishment and/or psychological aggression worldwide.
The highest number of human trafficking victims were in India and the UK, both with above 1000 detected. Many countries which could be at risk are missing data for this indicator as of 2021. Indicator 16.2.2 asks us to disaggregate by sex and age. The biggest disparities in sex among countries with data separated by sex were in Turkey. In Turkey, trafficking of girls was more than tenfold. This number was fivefold in the UK. In Tunisia, the opposite was true, with six times as many boys trafficked as girls. For trafficked victims over 18, several countries with data had more than five times as many women trafficked as men. These include Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Italy, and Uzbekistan. Latvia, Bulgaria, and Ireland had close to five times as many men as women trafficked.
A great many countries are missing data for the proportion of young women who experienced sexual violence before age 18. The highest rates were in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mexico and Trinidad & Tobago, with rates higher than 1 in 10. The worldwide figure as of 2021 was 3%. Few countries reported data for men who experienced sexual violence before age 18.