Human trafficking and sexual exploitation are rife in Switzerland

Human trafficking and sexual exploitation are rife in Switzerland Keystone-SDA

Sexual and labour exploitation remains a serious problem in Switzerland. In 2025, 532 victims, mostly women, received support from aid organisations. Some 87 criminal proceedings relating to human trafficking were pending, but only a few resulted in final judgements.

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In 2025, the victim support organisations of Plateforme TraiteExternal link identified 192 new victims of human trafficking, as the coalition of Swiss non-governmental organisations against human trafficking announced on Thursday to mark the International Day Against Human Trafficking. In total, the organisations conducted initial interviews with more than 380 people.

Of the newly identified victims, 55% were victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation, 42% for labour exploitation and 3% suffered other forms of exploitation.

According to Plateforme Traite, these figures are largely in line with those of previous years, while the number of referrals of potential victims has continued to rise. The majority of the newly identified victims are women (70%). The victims come from 79 countries of origin. Last year, people from Colombia, Nigeria and Brazil were identified most frequently.

In the reporting year, figures on criminal complaints filed by the victims were also collected for the first time. The five member organisations of Plateforme Traite recorded a total of 87 ongoing criminal proceedings for 2025, of which the complaints against the perpetrators were filed in 68 cases over the course of the past year.

Perpetrators often go unpunished

Plateforme Traite emphasised that the number of convictions for human trafficking remains very low. Since the offence of human trafficking was introduced into the Swiss Criminal Code in 2006, an average of only ten convictions for human trafficking per year have become final.

The low number of convictions shows that many victims continue to be denied justice through this system and that numerous perpetrators remain unpunished.

In addition to a lack of awareness and specialist knowledge among those dealing with such cases within the criminal justice system, another reason lies in the wording of the relevant section of the Criminal Code on human trafficking. Plateforme Traite criticises the fact that this article does not define the constituent elements of human trafficking with sufficient clarity. This applies in particular to the area of labour exploitation.

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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.