Forced Prostitution

Forced prostitution, also called involuntary or compulsory prostitution, is prostitution or sexual slavery imposed on a person through coercion by a third party, closely linked to human trafficking; a 2010 United Nations report found that seventy nine percent of identified trafficking victims worldwide were trafficked for sexual exploitation, with women and children disproportionately affected. Under the Palermo Protocol's definition of trafficking, threat, coercion or the use of force is not even required to establish the offense where a trafficker exploits an existing vulnerability. The offense is addressed in major international instruments including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and its wartime form is illustrated historically by the comfort women system of systematic sexual slavery.