South Korea’s Response to Human Trafficking and its Challenges

Human trafficking is not an old-fashioned crime, but a global problem that still appears in various forms such as forced labor, sexual exploitation, and organ harvesting. A recently released UN report emphasized that human trafficking crimes are on the rise after COVID-19 (Reuter, 2024). In Korea, which is on the verge of entering a multicultural society, human trafficking crimes targeting vulnerable groups such as women and the disabled as well as forced labor for foreign workers are still committed. Therefore, this study analyzed the latest status of human trafficking responses in Korea and devised legal and policy improvement measures. Compared to international standards, Korea's definition and legal system of human trafficking were analyzed, and based on the contents of the “2023 and 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report” of the US Department of State, parts to be supplemented along with Korea's response achievements were extracted. As a result, the “First Government Comprehensive Plan to Prevent Human Trafficking, which was implemented in 2023” became a major turning point in the domestic human trafficking response system, such as strengthening support for victims, but the limitations of legal justice, lack of support for victims of non-sexual exploitation, and weak punishment were found to be limited. In addition, it was revealed that investigations and emergency measures on blind spot groups such as male labor exploitation victims were insufficient in overall crime responses such as human trafficking. In the end, in order to identify victims of human trafficking early in Korea, establish a support system according to the type of exploitation, and eradicate related crimes, it is necessary to urgently promote legal and policy expansion of legal justice that meets international standards, strengthen an integrated support system centered on victims, and improve the effectiveness of law enforcement.