By ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights

Executive summary

This AICHR Briefing Paper was developed by the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), with the support of the Australian Government through the ASEAN–Australia Counter Trafficking (ASEAN-ACT) program. It aims to support ASEAN sectoral bodies, ASEAN Member States, policymakers, justice sector institutions, organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), civil society organisations (CSOs), and other relevant stakeholders to strengthen disability-inclusive approaches to preventing and responding to trafficking in persons.

A draft of this AICHR Briefing Paper was presented at a regional workshop involving stakeholders from across ASEAN Member States in January 2025. Input and feedback provided during this workshop were incorporated into subsequent versions of the Briefing Paper. The paper also draws on the findings and inputs of the Regional Validation Workshop on the Zero Draft ASEAN Policy Brief on Disability and Trafficking in Persons, held in Laguna, Philippines, on 7-8 May 2026. The results of these research and consultation activities are reflected in the present version.

What is the policy challenge and why does it matter?
Trafficking in persons remains a significant human rights challenge globally and across ASEAN. While persons with disabilities are recognised as being at heightened risk of trafficking and exploitation, there are no reliable estimates of the number of persons with disabilities who are trafficked. This is largely because trafficking data is not routinely disaggregated by disability and many victims with disabilities remain unidentified or do not report their experiences to authorities.

The relationship between disability and trafficking is complex and operates in two directions. Persons with pre-existing disabilities may face increased risks of trafficking due to structural inequalities and barriers to education, employment, information, social protection, and justice. At the same time, trafficking itself can result in physical, psychosocial, intellectual, or other disabilities arising from violence, exploitation, hazardous working conditions, deprivation, trauma, and the lack of timely medical and psychosocial care.

Research and consultations indicate that persons with disabilities experience multiple forms of trafficking, including labour trafficking, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, forced begging, and online exploitation. The Regional Validation Workshop in Laguna (May 2026) further highlighted the importance of recognising the diverse experiences of persons with different types of disabilities, including non-visible disabilities, and ensuring that persons who acquire disabilities as a consequence of trafficking are not overlooked in prevention, protection, recovery, and access to justice efforts.

What are the key drivers of the problem?
Poverty, social exclusion, discrimination, and unequal access to education, employment, social protection, and essential services continue to be among the principal drivers of vulnerability to trafficking for persons with disabilities. Limited access to accessible information and awareness of trafficking risks and available support services further increases vulnerability.

The Regional Validation Workshop held in Laguna in May also emphasised that vulnerability is shaped by multiple intersecting factors. Gender, age, migration status, displacement, statelessness, ethnicity, indigenous identity, conflict, disasters, climate change, and unsafe online environments may combine with disability to create heightened and compounded risks of trafficking and exploitation. These intersecting vulnerabilities require responses that move beyond a single-risk approach and recognise the diversity of experiences among persons with disabilities.

What legal and policy frameworks are in place?
Through their ratification of international human rights instruments, including the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (2000) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), ASEAN Member States have committed to ensuring that persons with disabilities are protected from trafficking and exploitation and are able to access recovery services and justice.

This commitment is echoed in regional agreements, including the 2015 ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (ACTIP) and through regional plans such as the ASEAN Multi-Sectoral Work Plan Against Trafficking in Persons 2023‒2028 and the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan 2025: Mainstreaming the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In line with Article 5 of ACTIP, national laws on trafficking in most ASEAN Member States recognise persons with disabilities as a group that is vulnerable to trafficking in persons by imposing harsher penalties for cases of trafficking involving a person with a disability. Other policies and strategies in some countries also make explicit reference to protection of persons with disabilities and the need for recovery and rehabilitation services for victims of trafficking to be disability inclusive.

National disability laws and policies in ASEAN Member States outline the broad rights and entitlements of persons with disabilities in a range of areas and in some countries explicitly prohibit abuse and exploitation of persons with disabilities. However, full implementation of these rights is an ongoing challenge and persons with disabilities still face a range of barriers to accessing their rights and entitlements.

Broadly speaking, laws and policies on counter trafficking and disability are disconnected from each other. This means that stakeholders in these two sectors often work in silos and there are missed opportunities to prevent trafficking and more effectively protect victims with disabilities.

Participants at the Laguna Regional Validation Workshop emphasised the need for greater policy coherence across ASEAN and national frameworks, stronger crosssectoral coordination, and the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in policy development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.

What are the key gaps in practice?
At a practical level, there is limited collaboration between counter-trafficking stakeholders and agencies supporting individuals with disabilities. This makes it challenging to address the specific vulnerabilities and needs of victims of trafficking with disabilities.

Many victims of trafficking with disabilities do not report their experiences to authorities because of shame, fear of traffickers, social stigma, harmful gender norms or because a family member or romantic partner has been involved in their trafficking. Existing processes for identification also fail to identify many victims of trafficking with disabilities. Even if they are identified as a victim of trafficking, frontline staff often do not have the knowledge and skills to identify that they may have a disability. Without formal identification, victims of trafficking with disabilities may not able to access the full range of services they are entitled to.

Government and non-government organisations across the ASEAN region provide a range of services to support recovery and reintegration for people who have been identified as victims of trafficking or presumed victims of trafficking. But these organisations face funding and staffing challenges and often have limited capacity to meet the specific needs of persons with disabilities. Limited numbers of specialists mean that providing mental health care for victims of trafficking is a particular challenge. There are also challenges with long-term care for physical and mental health, particularly outside major cities. Victims of trafficking with disabilities also face significant barriers in accessing justice, including limited access to legal assistance, lack of reasonable accommodations, and negative stereotypes which affect their ability to participate in legal processes.

Reintegration of victims of trafficking with disabilities is particularly challenging when family members have been involved in trafficking. There are also significant risks of being re-trafficked when the underlying drivers – poverty, lack of education, and limited employment and livelihood opportunities – are not addressed. Victims of trafficking with disabilities also face significant stigma, discrimination and exclusion.

What can be done to strengthen counter-trafficking policy and practice?
This ASEAN policy brief makes a number of recommendations for both regional and national stakeholders. This includes raising awareness among persons with disabilities about the risks of trafficking and exploitation, providing clear guidance and training for frontline responders on accessible and inclusive identification, service delivery and access to justice, strengthening regional and national strategy and policy frameworks to ensure these recognise and address the intersection of disability and trafficking in persons, and strengthening collection and reporting of disability disaggregated data on victims of trafficking.

Read the full Briefing Paper here.

Source: https://aichr.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/AICHR-Briefing-Paper-on-Disability-and-Trafficking-in-Persons-in-ASEAN_adopt-ad-ref-on-091126.pdf. Archived at https://perma.cc/7CSV-L4N4