• Fund and empower the anti-trafficking secretariat to implement effective anti-trafficking measures.
• Increase efforts to identify trafficking victims, including among minority and Indigenous populations.
• Fund and expand access to adequate specialized victim services, including for adult male victims.
• Draft and adopt a NAP to combat trafficking.
• Investigate and prosecute alleged traffickers, including complicit officials, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should include significant prison terms.
• Increase engagement with civil society actors to complement the government’s efforts to prevent trafficking and protect victims; enable regular and meaningful civil society participation in the interagency roundtable.
• Train officials to consistently utilize victim identification protocols and referral mechanisms, and to respond to extraterritorial commercial child sexual exploitation by foreigners in Paraguay as a trafficking crime.
• Increase funding and staffing for the Paraguayan National Police Anti-Trafficking Unit (PNPTU).
• Revise the definition of human trafficking under Law 4788/12 to ensure force, fraud, or coercion are essential elements of the crime as established consistent with the UN TIP Protocol.
• Adopt reforms to eliminate abusive practices and working conditions that may amount to trafficking in criadazgo (child domestic servitude).
• Improve interagency coordination and adopt or develop a case management database for trafficking cases.

The government slightly decreased prosecution efforts.

The Comprehensive Anti-Trafficking Law 4788 of 2012 criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of up to eight years’ imprisonment for cases involving adult victims and two to 20 years’ imprisonment for those involving child victims; these penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with penalties prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. Inconsistent with the definition of trafficking under international law, Law 4788/12 established the use of force, fraud, and coercion as aggravating factors rather than essential elements of the crime; penalties were increased to two to 15 years’ imprisonment under such circumstances. Article 139 of the penal code, which relates to pimping crimes, may be used to prosecute child sex trafficking offenses; however, it prescribed penalties of up to eight years’ imprisonment for offenses involving children, which are significantly lower than the maximum penalties described under the anti-trafficking law.

The PNPTU and the public prosecutor’s Anti-Trafficking Unit (ATU) shared responsibility for investigating trafficking crimes; the ATU also acted as the lead prosecuting agency. In 2024, authorities initiated 139 investigations (15 for sex trafficking and 24 for labor trafficking under Law 4788/12 and 100 for “child pimping” crimes under Article 139), compared with 82 investigations in 2023 and 126 in 2022. Officials continued to investigate 45 cases initiated in previous years. Authorities filed preliminary charges against 12 suspected traffickers in 2024 (three for labor trafficking under Law 4788/12 and nine for “child pimping” crimes under Article 139), compared with prosecuting 10 suspected traffickers in 2023 and two in 2022. There were ongoing prosecutions involving 19 accused traffickers, compared with ongoing prosecutions against six accused traffickers in 2023 and five in 2022. Courts convicted four sex traffickers in 2024, the same number convicted in 2023. The courts sentenced one convicted trafficker to four years’ imprisonment, two traffickers to five years’ imprisonment, and the fourth to 15 years’ imprisonment and to pay an undisclosed amount in restitution to the victim.

Judges specializing in organized crime adjudicated Paraguay’s trafficking cases. Although the government did not report the budget allocated to anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts, government and civil society commentators indicated the PNPTU, like the other law enforcement units, continued to operate with insufficient resources, marking the unit’s seventh consecutive year of limited funding. The PNPTU comprised 41 specialized trafficking officers in 2024; this compared with 38 in 2023. Observers indicated the unit needed more staff, dedicated equipment, and increased training to adequately perform its duties. The ATU comprised four specialized prosecutors and reported to a non-specialized deputy attorney general. In 2024, the ATU engaged with foreign law enforcement officials on 27 cooperation requests, mostly with Argentine and Spanish counterparts. One international investigation led to 24 arrests, the identification of 21 Paraguayan victims exploited in Chile, and the creation of a joint investigative team with Chilean prosecutors to investigate cases of sexual exploitation, including human trafficking. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes; corruption and complicity in trafficking crimes remained general concerns, although there were no confirmed reports. In partnership with international organizations, the government trained law enforcement and border officials on victim identification, investigative strategies, and relevant SOPs.

The government maintained protection efforts.

The government lacked a centralized database to aggregate information across ministries and could not provide comprehensive data on victim protection. There were three agencies involved in victim identification and assistance: the ATU, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MWA), and the Ministry of Children and Adolescents (MINNA). These agencies reported identifying 104 victims – 20 sex trafficking victims, 18 labor trafficking victims, and 66 victims of unspecified forms of trafficking – in 2024. By comparison, the government reported identifying 63 victims in 2023. Among the 104 victims identified, there were nine women, 71 girls, 10 men, and 14 boys. There was one foreign national victim, 134 Paraguayans exploited within the country, and 16 Paraguayans exploited abroad in Brazil, Chile, France, and Spain. MINNA did not identify any child trafficking victims at national borders in 2024. The government’s interagency anti-trafficking roundtable directed a referral mechanism for prosecutors, police, labor inspectors, and border officials. The government did not have a universal protocol to facilitate the proactive identification of victims; however, some government entities had internal protocols, such as MINNA’s SOP for the identification of child trafficking victims at national borders. In December 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs adopted and trained officials on a new SOP for identifying and referring trafficking victims in a consular setting, in coordination with an international organization. Itapúa department inaugurated an anti-trafficking control office to facilitate screening at the San Roque Gonzalez de Santa Cruz bridge border crossing, although it had not reported identifying any victims at the office. Officials’ use of available referral and identification resources was inconsistent and ad hoc. Due to inadequate screening for trafficking indicators among vulnerable individuals, including women in commercial sex and minority and Indigenous populations, the government did not take effective measures to prevent the inappropriate penalization of potential victims solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

MWA operated a dedicated trafficking shelter equipped to serve up to 15 women victims. MWA could also serve women trafficking victims at its two domestic violence shelters. In July 2024, MINNA established a specialized shelter for child victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The new shelter could accommodate up to 12 girls and boys under 18 years of age, filling a crucial gap in shelter availability; in previous years, there were no shelter options for boys ages 13-17. MINNA created the new shelter after it ceased funding a similar civil society shelter, which precipitated that facility’s temporary closure from February 2024 until February 2025; MINNA arranged temporary housing for the children displaced by the shelter’s closure and referred child victims to alternate housing until July. MINNA could also refer child victims to two shelters for children experiencing homelessness. The government did not have a shelter to assist adult male trafficking victims; however, the ATU could provide psychological assistance, food, and immediate shelter at hotels before facilitating the return of male victims to their community of origin. MWA reported providing some form of support services to at least 13 trafficking victims, some of whom were identified in previous reporting periods, compared with 31 victims in 2023. ATU provided short-term emergency assistance to at least four victims, compared with 20 victims in 2023. Officials did not report any victim referrals to MINNA shelters or the MWA shelter. In 2024, the ATU provided food support to at least three male victims; at least three male victims received shelter during the year.

In the absence of sufficient shelter capacity, most victims, including children, returned to their homes, where they sometimes struggled to access other support services; returning home also increased victims’ vulnerability to re-victimization, especially in instances in which victims’ families were involved in their exploitation. The government did not report whether its interagency working group to support provision of services to trafficking victims outside of government shelters remained active during the reporting period. The MWA continued to conduct at-home visits under its SOP for supporting victims leaving its shelter; it conducted 32 at-home visits for 13 survivors in 2024, compared with 15 visits in 2023. The MWA informally coordinated with other agencies to fund and distribute additional food and hygiene supplies to 11 victims in 2024, compared with 15 in 2023. The government did not provide victims cash subsidies informally or through its designated program for this purpose, compared with offering subsidies to nine victims in 2024. However, victims could apply for a cash assistance program designed for Paraguayans with limited resources; the government did not report how many victims participated in this program in 2024. In addition to providing shelter and food, the government had a limited ability to provide psychological support, social assistance, legal advice, and reintegration programs for some victims. The ATU, MINNA, and MWA collaborated to prioritize victims most in need of these services. The government did not issue any small business grants through its entrepreneurship program for trafficking survivors in 2024 or 2023, compared with 28 in 2022. The government did not provide assistance to or coordinate with NGOs providing victim services. Civil society observers indicated their ability to support victim service provision was impacted by officials’ lack of substantive cooperation with them. The overall quality of care for victims, particularly in rural areas, was inadequate due to limited resources and the lack of qualified personnel.

The government did not report its victim assistance expenditures, but government officials and observers assessed funding was insufficient to adequately assist victims; observers further noted that resource availability remained below pre-pandemic benchmarks. Despite being outside its purview, the ATU continued to provide basic assistance to trafficking victims due to gaps in other agencies’ victim services offerings; it did not receive government funding for victim assistance and relied on scant resources from an NGO-managed victims’ services account funded by court-ordered fines. This fund supported the government’s case-by-case provision of food assistance, direct cash transfers, and reintegration programming for trafficking victims, although its balance was insufficient to finance the full range of victims’ needs. Foreign trafficking victims were eligible for residence permits to remain in Paraguay; the government did not report issuing residence permits to any trafficking victims in 2024. Only one victim completed the permit application process since 2020, although the government could subsidize the associated cost for trafficking victims. The government helped repatriate five Paraguayans exploited abroad in 2024, compared with repatriating 30 Paraguayan victims in 2023. Law 4788/12 outlined a procedure to award victims restitution when the courts convicted traffickers; victims could also file civil suits with the support of a government attorney to obtain compensation. Prosecutors did not routinely seek restitution on victims’ behalf; however, courts ordered one trafficker to pay restitution in 2024, although officials reported the fourth trafficker filed to appeal the restitution order and, by the end of the reporting period, had not made payment. By comparison, courts did not order restitution payment to any victims in 2023.

The government increased prevention efforts.

The government established the National Program to Prevent, Combat, and Assist Victims of Trafficking in Persons (“National Program”) by presidential decree in February 2025, fulfilling Law 4788/12’s requirement to create an anti-trafficking secretariat. The National Program was situated within the Ministry of Interior and responsible for overseeing the country’s anti-trafficking efforts; however, the decree did not identify a funding stream for the National Program’s operations, which was also required by law. Officials expressed concern that the lack of dedicated funding constituted a significant obstacle to anti-trafficking efforts. Prior to February 2025, the Directorate for the Attention of the Overseas Paraguayan Community (DACPE) coordinated governmental anti-trafficking efforts; it continued to convene an interagency roundtable that included intermittent participation from 16 government agencies. In 2024, the roundtable held four sessions, the same number held in 2023. Law 4788/12 did not require participation of civil society in the roundtable, and authorities gave such stakeholders a limited, non-voting role. Although the roundtable’s plenary sessions were officially open to civil society, and two NGOs served as liaisons between the roundtable and civil society, some NGOs reported they did not receive consistent notification of meetings. Observers reported weak governmental efforts to coordinate with NGOs and the government’s relationship with civil society broadly worsened during the reporting period. Some states maintained regional roundtables to promote coordinated anti-trafficking efforts at the subnational level. Poor and informal interagency coordination continued to limit the government’s ability to monitor, collect, and report statistics.

The 2020-2024 NAP, the government’s first presidentially-approved plan to guide anti-trafficking efforts, expired at the end of 2024. The government had not begun drafting a replacement for the plan, which suffered from poor coordination, internal disputes, and funding limitations during its lifetime. The government supported some awareness initiatives; for example, the Ministry of Education implemented a new awareness campaign targeting primary and secondary students. However, the government largely relied on civil society, businesses, and trade unions to run trafficking awareness campaigns. Awareness materials developed by the government were available in Spanish and Guarani. The government maintained hotlines to report crimes against women and children, including trafficking, as well as a webpage for filing complaints about trafficking and other crimes. The child protection hotline received 43 reports of forced child labor, including 12 calls regarding potential situations of criadzgo, in 2024; however, the government did not provide the total number of trafficking-related reports received via these mechanisms.

Labor inspectors could refer trafficking victims to services through the interagency roundtable and previously received training to identify trafficking victims during inspections, but inspectors did not refer any victims to the roundtable or cases to the ATU in 2024. Inspectors conducted 843 on-site labor inspections in 2024, identifying two child labor violations, which may have amounted to trafficking. The Ministry of Labor imposed a fine in one of these cases. Observers noted the monetary fines commonly levied against employers for child labor violations were insufficient to discourage the practice. The government remained without effective approaches to tackling the abusive practices and working conditions common in situations of criadazgo; however, the legislature considered a draft bill to define and abolish the practice during the reporting period. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts. The government continued to grant certifications to hotels and other tourism-sector companies that complied with certain anti-trafficking measures; however, it did not typically identify or investigate reports of foreign citizens engaging in commercial sex acts with children as commercial child sexual exploitation or trafficking crimes.

Trafficking affects all communities. This section summarizes government and civil society reporting on the nature and scope of trafficking over the past five years. Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Paraguay, and traffickers exploit victims from Paraguay abroad. The practice of compelling children to labor as domestic workers, criadazgo, is a common form of trafficking in the country. Middle- and upper-income families in urban and rural areas take on children, usually from impoverished families, as domestic workers and provide varying compensation that may include room, board, money, a small stipend, or access to educational opportunities. An estimated 47,000 Paraguayan children work in situations of criadazgo; many of these children are highly vulnerable to sex and labor trafficking. Although the practice mainly affects young girls, boys represent 30 percent of children in criadazgo. Traffickers exploit children and adults from rural areas in sex trafficking and forced labor in urban centers. Trafficking cases, especially cases of child sex trafficking, often involve a familial trafficker. Authorities have documented forced labor in Paraguay’s agriculture and aquaculture industries. In the Chaco region, traffickers exploit adults and children in debt bondage. Children engaged in street vending, begging, mining, brick making, and ranching are vulnerable to trafficking. Boys are often victims of forced labor in agriculture, domestic service, and criminality. Traffickers exploit children in forced labor in the cultivation and distribution of illicit drugs; they may also leverage victims’ drug dependency to facilitate exploitation. Traffickers also recruit Paraguayan women to transport illicit drugs across international borders and may subsequently subject them to sex trafficking.

Indigenous adults and children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. Traffickers increasingly utilize social media to recruit victims and sometimes use threats of disseminating victims’ intimate content online as a means of coercion. Traffickers exploit Paraguayan women, girls, and boys in sex trafficking within the country, including aboard vessels navigating the country’s major waterways. NGOs and advocates reported Paraguayans they described as transgender are vulnerable to sex trafficking. Government reporting indicates many Paraguayans exploited in trafficking abroad hail from the departments of Alto Parana, Caaguazu, and Central. Paraguayan victims of sex trafficking and forced labor have been identified in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Italy, Germany, Spain, and other countries. In Chile, traffickers exploit Paraguayan women in sex trafficking after smuggling them into the country as passengers in long-haul shipping trucks. In Brazil, traffickers exploit Paraguayan men in forced labor, including in agriculture nationwide and in illegal cigarette factories in Rio de Janeiro. Paraguayan women trafficking victims often transit third countries – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Spain – en route to the country where traffickers exploit them. Traffickers operate in small, localized illicit groups, and may recruit and exploit victims in coordination with similar illicit groups abroad. The lack of regulatory measures and insufficient transnational cooperation, combined with numerous unofficial border crossings, contribute to increased trafficking risk in and around the Tri-Border Area between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Observers express concern that the proposed transcontinental freeway, the Bi-Oceanic Route, could generate new trafficking vulnerabilities. Foreign trafficking victims exploited in Paraguay are mostly from other South American countries. Civil society and victims alleged some officials – including police, border guards, judges, and public registry employees – facilitated trafficking by overlooking fraudulent identity documents, taking bribes from brothel owners in exchange for protection, or extorting suspected traffickers to prevent arrest.