Blue Heart Campaign Against Human Trafficking

The Blue Heart Campaign Against Human Trafficking is an awareness raising initiative to fight human trafficking and its impact on society created by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The Blue Heart Campaign seeks to encourage involvement and inspire action to help stop this crime. The campaign also encourages people to show solidarity with victims of human trafficking by wearing the Blue Heart. In November 2009, the Government of Mexico adopted the Blue Heart Campaign as its official human trafficking prevention campaign.

The Blue Heart Campaign maintains that human trafficking is a crime that strips people of their rights, ruins their dreams, and robs them of their dignity, and that it is a crime that shames us all. Human trafficking is a global problem and no country is immune. Millions of victims are entrapped and exploited every year in this modern form of slavery.

The Blue Heart symbol represents the sadness of those who are trafficked while reminding us of the cold heartedness of those who buy and sell fellow human beings. The use of the blue UN colour also demonstrates the commitment of the United Nations to combating this crime against human dignity.

In the same way that the red ribbon has become the international symbol of HIV/AIDS awareness, this campaign aims to make the Blue Heart into an international symbol against human trafficking. By "wearing" the Blue Heart people can raise awareness of human trafficking and join the campaign to fight this crime.

The UNODC as guardian of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and the Protocols thereto, assists States in their efforts to implement the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (Trafficking in Persons Protocol). The Blue Heart Campaign seeks to raise awareness of the problem and inspire those with decision-making power to effect change.

Human trafficking involves the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a person through use of force, coercion, deception or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims. , as guardian of the UNTOC and its Trafficking in Persons Protocol has human trafficking as one of its priority areas of work.