The majority of the world’s human trafficking victims live or originate in Asia, including, as mentioned in the introduction, three-fourths of the world’s victims of forced labor. Asian trafficking victims are exploited in all regions of the world, especially other Asian countries, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and North America. The trafficking business in Asia is more often dominated by organized crime than in other parts of the world.

Asian crime groups, both large and small, specialize in human smuggling and trafficking, in contrast with their counterparts in Latin America, North America, or Western Europe, who profit more significantly from the drug trade. The well-known crime groups of China and Japan participate in the trade, but also lesser known Korean, Thai, Indian, and other groups. Crime groups became key actors in both domestic and transnational trafficking earlier and on a larger scale than their criminal counterparts in other parts of the world. Crime groups alone are not the sole facilitators. Government officials in most regions of Asia assume important roles in perpetuating the trafficking. Corruption is not confined to border areas but also involves police in the cities and officials in ports, airports, and many other parts of state bureaucracies. In some parts of Asia, such as the Philippines, elites are also traffickers. In the most extreme case of North Korea, the state contracts out its citizens for employment abroad in exploitative conditions, as is seen in the Russian Far East.