5,070 human trafficking incidents reported over 10 years
Dec. 17, 2025
Global Korean Post
–
Trafficking in persons, also known as human trafficking, involves recruiting, transporting, sheltering or controlling the movements of a person for the purposes of exploitation, usually for sexual reasons or forced labour. Human trafficking does not require the crossing of international borders and can occur entirely within a single country.
The Juristat article “Trafficking in persons in Canada, 2024” released on December 18, 2025, examines trends and characteristics in human trafficking incidents reported by police from 2014 to 2024, along with the decisions and outcomes of cases completed in the adult criminal courts.
From 2014 to 2024, there were 5,070 human trafficking incidents reported by police services in Canada, representing an average annual rate of 1.2 incidents per 100,000 population. On a year-over-year basis, there were about three times as many human trafficking incidents in 2024 compared with 2014, with numbers increasing in each year since 2014, except for 2018.
Human trafficking is highly gendered. From 2014 to 2024, the vast majority (93%) of victims identified by police were women and girls, and most persons (82%) accused of the crime were men and boys. These trends have generally remained consistent over time. Additionally, compared with men and boy victims, women and girl victims tended to be younger, to be involved in single-victim incidents and to share an intimate relationship with their trafficker.
From 2014 to 2024, about three in five police-reported incidents of human trafficking (59%) were not cleared (see Note to readers), but of those that were, most (90%) were cleared by the laying or recommendation of charges.
(Source: Statistics Canada)
