These guidelines will be made available here after approval by the ILO Governing Body in November 1997. The ILO report on this subject illustrates its growing importance. The role of private recruitment agents Throughout the world, especially in Asia, private agents are placing more workers with foreign employers than public employment services - indeed, they are largely taking their place. Large wage differentials among countries and the excess supply of people wishing to emigrate have led to a situation where private recruitment agents can ask candidates for employment abroad to pay large sums of money that do not reflect actual recruitment cost. Malpractices can be tackled through ILO's normal activities.
Exploitation is something that goes beyond a minor infringement of a minor labour law.
It is more than an individual act of aberration. It does not occur because recruiters or employers lack information on how they should treat migrants. Exploitation is a serious, recurrent and deliberate disregard of major national legislation or international principles. For the text of the ILO report covering these three subjects, see Protecting the most vulnerable of today's migrant workers , Report for the Tripartite Meeting of Experts on Future ILO Activities in the Field of Migration, Geneva, ILO, 1997.