Human Trafficking is a crime and a human rights violation. For a situation to be one of trafficking three distinct elements (act, means, purpose) must be fulfilled:

• The ACT of recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons must be done by
• A MEANS such as the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or the giving or receiving of payments and it must be for the purpose of
• EXPLOITATION i.e. sexual exploitation, labour exploitation or organ removal.

There is no requirement that a person must have crossed a border for trafficking to have taken place – it can and does take place within national borders.
A child cannot consent to being trafficked.
The internationally agreed legal definition of human trafficking is set out in

• Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings
• UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime.