The Impact of UN Peacekeeping Operations on Human Trafficking

While United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations (PKOs) are generally considered to reduce the likelihood of civil war recurrence, attention in recent years has shifted to understanding the dynamics unique to post‐Cold War peacekeeping, including the changing makeup and mandate of PKOs, and associated patterns of peacekeeper misconduct. While several studies of misconduct emphasize peacekeepers’ implication in sexual exploitation and abuse of host country citizens, this study goes the next step by assessing peacekeeping’s relationship to human trafficking more broadly—a perennial concern in post‐conflict states. Though UN PKOs are not always directly responsible for increases in human trafficking in mission host countries, this paper considers how the attributes of UN peacekeeping missions may create the conditions where trafficking is likely to flourish or flounder.