As it marked the first ever World Day against Trafficking in Persons, the UN has called for an end to human trafficking, urging all countries to ratify and fully implement the relevant international convention and protocol.

The world body Wednesday also appealed to everyone to open their eyes to the crime of human trafficking and their hearts to the victims and support efforts to tackle the root causes.

"Human trafficking is a callous global industry that denies victims their rights and dignity and generates billions of dollars for organized criminal networks," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his message on World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.

"Most of those trafficked are vulnerable women and children, deceived into a life of suffering. They are exploited for sex and forced to work in conditions akin to slavery," he said.

"I urge all countries to ratify and fully implement the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocol on Trafficking in Persons."

At any given time, an estimated 2.5 million people are trapped in modern-day slavery, targeted by traffickers for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. The International Labor Organization had estimated that trafficking generates $32 billion (23 billion euros) a year in revenue.

Dossier of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon is mostly linked to human trafficking, because they are abused and treated as slaves.

The investigations carried out by the judiciary show that major crime components related to domestic workers are verbal and physical abuse, domestic violence, withholding salaries and rape as also many cases ended by the suicide of the foreign worker.

According to reports prepared by international organizations and published by al-Akhbar daily, Lebanon represents a transit country and a final destination for huge number of migrant domestic workers who are being subject to human trafficking. It is considered as destination country for foreign women who are forced to work in sex industry, not to mention children trafficking.

Labor law cannot be applied on women working in sex industry although the contracts stipulate them as "dancers", "models" or "masseuses" and they obtain the visa as "artists". Lebanon blatantly violates all international standards that should be implemented and breaches the administrative procedures applied on sex workers, who are banned from marriage during their stay in Lebanon.

The influx of Syrian refugees aggravated the human trafficking issue and some reports say that human organs trade and secret prostitution have increased. Syrian family members are subject to human trafficking, mainly women who are also forced to work as prostitutes. Not to mention that a huge number of Syrian and Lebanese children are also being abused.