NAIROBI, 11 September 2009 (IRIN) - The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released a manual to help build capacity among criminal justice practitioners to prevent and combat human trafficking.

The Anti-Human Trafficking Manual for Criminal Justice Practitioners is a practical guide and training tool based on the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children.

The manual explores a victim-centred approach to effective law enforcement and some content is based on the experiences of more than 45 judges, prosecutors, investigators, academics and NGO and inter-governmental organization representatives.

According to UNODC, more human traffickers are being convicted globally but the process is bogged down by the absence of anti-trafficking legislation in some countries or by the inability to translate legislation into action.

In some cases, human trafficking is mistaken for migrant smuggling, while some victims fear to cooperate because of threats and intimidation by traffickers.

The most common form of trafficking, UNODC noted in a February report based on data from 155 countries, was for sexual exploitation, especially of women and girls.

In 30 percent of the countries, women were the main traffickers. Globally, almost 20 percent of victims were children - although in parts of Africa this proportion rose to 100 percent.

"More must be done to reduce the vulnerability of victims, increase the risks to traffickers, and lower demand for the goods and services of modern-day slaves," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said during the release of the report.

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