Abstract:
“Human Trafficking” means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of
persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of
fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or
receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another
person, for the purpose of exploitation. Millions of men, women and children are victims of
human trafficking for sexual, forced labor and other forms of exploitation worldwide. The main
objective of the study was to investigate the nature of the human trafficking in Sri Lankan
context. A purposive sample consisted 100 human trafficking victims selected through
recorded complaints of Central Investigation Department (CID) were interviewed by using
semi structured questionnaire. Results revealed that all were victims of “external human
trafficking”. Majority of the sample (More than 75%) were victims of “forced labour” and they
have been exploited in Singapore, Malaysia. Sri Lankan girls and women have been victims of
“sexual exploitation” in Thailand and they were guaranteed to offer nursing and household
works. Although there is a trend of Child trafficking it is not reported in Sri Lanka. Individuals
with foreign agents were the traffickers and different victims of the same trafficker could be
recognized. Unemployment, culture, short term hedonism, poverty and unawareness can be
recognized as the main factors of creating “trafficking trends” in Sri Lanka. Legal
empowerment and governmental intervention towards the foreign employment can be
recommended as the preventive methodologies
