The United Nations Protocol Against Trafficking in Persons identifies three elements of such trafficking: the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons; the use of improper means, such as force, abduction, fraud, or deception; and the objective of exploitation, such as sexual exploitation, forced labor, servitude, or slavery. The database on trafficking in humans developed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has obtained trafficking information from official government reports, information disseminated by intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, research reports, conference material, and media reports. Data on countries of origin, transit, and destination indicate that Africa, Asia, and the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have been the main regions for recruiting trafficking victims. Developed countries have been the destination countries where victims have been exploited for profit. Central and Eastern European countries have been transit countries. Eighty-three percent of the cases in the database involved female victims, and 48 percent involved children; only 4 percent had male victims. Any one case could include combinations of victims. Offenders were most often from the Russian Federation, Nigeria, and Ukraine. 11 figures, 14 references, and appended examples of data collections on trafficking in humans