Human trafficking in Italy and the European Union is a serious crisis that will only get worse in the absence of knowledge about the problem. The goal of this article is to examine the victims of human trafficking in Italy from the point of view of judicial activity in the hopes that a better understanding of the victims will lead to the development of more effective prevention and victim support and targeted law enforcement activities. The authors draw on information from several sources: statistics on criminal proceedings, judicial cases from the Italian prosecutors’ offices, and interviews the magistrates and nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s). The research was conducted in recent years at Transcrime, which has made human trafficking the focus of several studies. A quantitative analysis in the first part of the article offers information about criminal proceedings against traffickers between June 1996 and June 2001. The analysis focuses on victim characteristics, such as nationality, and their geographic distribution in Italy. In the second part of the article, a qualitative analysis of recent judicial cases involving human trafficking considers current trends, as well as victim profiles. Finally, the article explores the role of the victim in Italian judicial activities against human trafficking, including the mechanisms in place to assure their participation and the degree of collaboration between law enforcement agencies and NGO’s serving trafficking victims. The authors conclude that any anti-trafficking strategy should include prevention efforts and victim services, but should also include a determination to affect trafficking at its demand. Tables, figures, notes, references