The United Nations' International Labor Organization estimates there are more than 40 million current victims of the various forms of human trafficking globally.
Football experts say the world's biggest sports events are now major targets for traffickers.
Delphine Schantz, the Director at the New York Office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, expressed increasing concern about human trafficking related to sports.
"We know that transnational organized criminal groups infiltrate the transfer markets of athletes to exploit for illicit profits," she said.
"UNODC has documented instances of trafficking in football, in which contracts with young athletes are highly exploitative and favorable to the player, with agents taking a large share of the profits made by the athletes," she added.
Schantz disclosed that people in their late teenage years or early twenties often fall prey to human traffickers, hoping they will get access to major sports clubs or training. They many times wind up in forced labor or the sex trade.
This activity "usually involves children or young adults living in precarious situations, which can be who can be easily deceived and convinced to pay for services or sign exploitative contracts," Schantz said.
Samuel Eto'o, the president of Cameroon's Football Federation, said victims often are trafficked without identification documents.
Eto'o added that since July 1st, 2020, football member associations have been required to set up an electronic registration system for players as well as a national system for regulating national transfers.
He said a 2022 FIFA reform of the transfer system includes the issuing of an electronic passport that provides a player's registration history from the age of twelve.
Eto'o called for solutions to deal with human trafficking.
He said there is need for better rules to protect football players, especially women, and greater vigilance by sports authorities.
The Cameroonian football head played for European teams such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Chelsea, and was elected African Footballer of the Year on four occasions.