There is an acute lack of quality evidence and research available to inform the development of national policies and programmes to combat trafficking in persons (TIP). This is largely due to the lack of data available to researchers and policymakers: trafficking in persons1 is, after all, a complex, clandestine crime designed to go undetected.

The purpose of this guidance manual is to support the efforts of governments and other stakeholders to improve data collection, management, sharing and use, so that eventually more high-quality data can be leveraged to inform policy and programming. While the manual will be useful for all stakeholders dealing with administrative data, it specifically targets central government agencies or other organizations with a coordinating role at the national level (hereinafter referred to as central agencies) that use TIP administrative data from multiple sources to produce evidence to address trafficking in persons. These can be national rapporteur’s offices, ministries, agencies coordinating the national referral mechanism or national statistical offices, among others. The manual outlines useful considerations, describes the pitfalls to avoid, lists best practices and gives concrete examples to help establish (or improve) all data-related processes for national TIP administrative data. Importantly, it also provides direction on how to use the working version of the new International Classification Standard for Administrative Data on Trafficking in Persons most effectively (ICS-TIP). The ICS-TIP, the companion publication to this manual, establishes a new model of classification for key indicators related to TIP administrative data.