As defined by the United Nations, human trafficking is 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.

Every year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked in countries around the world – including Jordan. Many of these victims are lured with false promises of financial or emotional security; and they are forced or coerced into commercial sex (prostitution), domestic servitude, or other types of forced labor.

Victims of trafficking can be any age, race, gender, or nationality; trafficking victims can be men or women, boys or girls, Jordanian citizens or foreign nationals. Human trafficking can involve school-age youths, particularly those made vulnerable by unstable family situations, or who have little or no social support. The children at risk are not just high school students – studies show that the average age a child is trafficked into the commercial sex trade is between 11 and 14 years old. Traffickers may target young victims through social media websites, telephone chat-lines, and after-school programs, on the streets, at shopping malls, in clubs, or through other students who are used by the traffickers to recruit other victims. In fact, a person can be trafficked without ever leaving his or her hometown.

Child trafficking can take a variety of forms, including commercial sexual exploitation (prostitution) or forced labor. Those who recruit minors for the purpose of commercial sex are violating Jordan anti-trafficking laws, even if no force, fraud, or coercion was involved.

The challenge is that human trafficking a hidden crime and the limited awareness and knowledge about human trafficking exacerbating the position in Jordan especially between Syrian refugees. So, the workshop has developed also the training materials to help increase awareness, knowledge and educate on the indicators of human trafficking.

The workshop, which was implemented in cooperation with the 'Arab Center for democratic Development -UniHRD', included general information on human trafficking in Jordan and MENA countries, as well as a list of indicators to help education professionals identify and respond to a potential human trafficking situation when encountered, a number of red flags, or indicators, which can help alert the community to human trafficking.

• Promote human trafficking awareness through the community with concentration of youth
• Educate participants about indicators, red flag and good practices for enhancing a community response to human trafficking
• Motivate anti human trafficking actions
• Promote creating effective community wide strategies to combat human trafficking

Accordingly to the request of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Labor, UniHRD and Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung implemented a workshop under the title "Human trafficking" for the second time (see previous article) as the matter is very urgently and important. One of the outcomes that were achieved that all concerns bodies in the government have had different meetings during the last year and even in 2017, and they came out with an idea to create a Brokerage office which is something new in Jordan to follow up all the complains related to the human trafficking (a big number of complains related to the human trafficking were registered in Jordan in 2016 by the Unit of Human Trafficking).

The participants of the workshop were composed of different sectors of society, students, lawyers, participants from civil society organizations and representatives of various ministries in Jordan like the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Political and Parliamentary Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health Minister and various security agencies such as the Preventive Security, the General Security, the General Intelligence Criminal Investigation and the Unit for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings Jordan. in Addition the Head of West Amman Court, the Head of the police appeals court and the Vice President of the Zaatari refugee camp participated. The workshop was covered from private and public media.

The participants also learned in particular about the realities of domestic human trafficking in Jordan especially in between Syrian refugees since the numbers of the refugees were increased.