Human trafficking is defined in the German Criminal Code (StGB) under § 232 and covers the recruitment, transportation, receiving and harboring of a person by exploiting a situation of duress or helplessness with the aim of exploitation by:

• the practice of prostitution or the performance of sexual acts
• an employment
• the practice of begging
• the commission of acts punishable by law
• Slavery, serfdom, debt bondage or similar conditions
• forced organ removal.

For persons under 21 years of age, there does not need to be a situation of duress or helplessness.

The individual forms of exploitation are then described in the following sections 232a et seq. of the German Criminal Code (StGB). Forced labour, ZwangsprostitutionExploitation of labor and exploitation through deprivation of liberty, as well as exploitation of prostitutes (Section 180a of the German Criminal Code), are criminalized. The term "human trafficking" in the German Criminal Code is therefore relatively narrowly defined and refers only to the creation of conditions that enable exploitation, not the exploitation itself.

However, the KOK uses the term human trafficking in a broader sense, encompassing both the recruitment process and the entire exploitative situation. The various forms and areas of human trafficking and exploitation (sexuelle Ausbeutung, labor exploitation, exploitation of begging and criminal acts) as well as forms of exploitation, even below the threshold of criminal offenses to human trafficking, are increasingly viewed in their entirety and no longer sharply separated from one another, as practice has shown that in many cases there are commonalities and the transitions can often be fluid.