Interior Ministry dismantles child-trafficking network

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq's Interior Ministry on Tuesday dismantled a network involved in human trafficking and the trafficking of children, and referred its members to the judiciary for legal proceedings.

According to the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights (IOHR), the authorities detained 5,107 people in human trafficking investigations during 2025, but only 385 victims were formally identified. The figures, drawn from a forthcoming study based on official statistics from the Ministry of Interior and field testimonies from survivors, show that documented victims accounted for just 7.5% of those detained —roughly one victim for every 13 detainees.

Read more: 2.3K lives lost: Iraq's grim toll of human trafficking