Abstract
Explores the role of private agents in moving workers over national borders. Explains the role of agents in labour markets, to examine the fees they extract, and sets out policy options that the ILO and governments might consider to regulate their behaviour. Reports from many countries suggest that fee-charging private agents often engage in activities that are quasi-legal or illegal under national laws and do not conform to ILO Conventions and Recommendations, such as helping migrants to cross borders in defiance of migration laws, requiring them to sign supplemental contracts abroad that raise the fees they originally agreed to pay for brokerage services, and entrapping migrants seeking higher wage foreign jobs in smuggling and trafficking operations that lead to bondage or slavery.