Illegal alien trafficking frequently involves significant violations of human rights. In some cases men are indentured for years, while women are forced into prostitution. A sub-set of trafficking in migrants that highlights the notion of treating people as commodities is the trafficking in women and children either for the commercial sex industry or for forced labor or for use as beggars. Human commodity trafficking, like other forms of transnational criminal activity, is closely linked to corruption. Corruption, sometimes a simple payoff to immigration officers, is the lubricant that allows criminal organizations to operate with maximum effectiveness and minimum interference. The volume seeks to illuminate: (1) the dimensions of the global trade in illegal migrants and of the trafficking in women and children for commercial sex; (2) the dynamics of the various aspects of human commodity trafficking; (3) the precise role of organized crime in this business and how organized it is; and (4) what has been done about such activities and what initiatives governments and international agencies are taking to prevent, control or mitigate human commodity trafficking. Notes