A diversity of actors participates in human trafficking, ranging from diplomats and employees of multinational organizations who traffic young women for domestic labor to small-scale entrepreneurs, to members of the large criminal organizations of Asia that specialize in human smuggling and trafficking. This chapter focuses on organized smuggling and trafficking and criminal networks rather than on the exploitation committed by elite individuals.

Trafficking networks include both economically and politically motivated criminals. Both categories of traffickers often intersect with the larger world of transnational crime. They obtain false documents for their victims from criminal specialists, hire thugs from outside their network to intimidate women and traffic laborers, and move their proceeds through established money-laundering channels.