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This information has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre under BiB No 64215.

There is no single crime of human trafficking and it may be recoded and prosecuted under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004.

Table 1 shows crimes related to 'human trafficking' recorded by the police, 2007-08 to 2021-22; Table 2 shows the number of people prosecuted where the main crime/charge was related to human trafficking, 2007-08 to 2020-21.

Please note: Care should be taken when comparing different data sources relating to the criminal justice system. A crime can only be recorded if it is reported to the police and can only then be prosecuted in court if the crime is reported to the procurator fiscal and a decision taken that court proceedings are the most appropriate course of action. In addition, recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland, while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases once they have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year. In addition, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime, or a set of crimes with more than one victim, in a proceeding, but only a single conviction for the ‘main charge’ (the one receiving the most severe sentence) would be counted in the court proceedings statistics. There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings.

Data for 2020-21 are affected by the pandemic and subsequent court closures and may not be reflective of long term trend.