E/CN.4/2001/83 page 13 B. Matters requiring the Special Rapporteur’s attention 1. Irregular migration 50. Most workers leave their countries of origin alone and this is a factor leading to family disruption. Heads of household emigrate in order to make dignified lives for themselves and send money to their families. When this situation is combined with the fact that it is impossible for such migrants to leave their country in a regular manner, they run the risk of falling into the hands of organized crime networks which sell travel documentation fraudulently. This is the beginning of a vicious circle. 51. From the point of view of the human rights of migrants, two concepts are particularly important: trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, i.e. clandestine border crossing. Cross-border smuggling, for which migrants pay large amounts of money or mortgage their property and that of their families in their countries of origin, is often the start of trafficking which is based on fraud and can lead to debt. Trafficking itself and the exploitation it involves, including lack of choice of type of work, humiliation, physical and mental ill-treatment, recruitment for the sex industry, death threats, coercion and fraud have extremely serious consequences for the individual, including guilt, low self-esteem, depression and emotional and physical vulnerability which become part of the victim’s profile. 52. In many cases, the two concepts are related. A person who falls into the trap in order to cross a border often finds himself without protection on the other side and ends up being easy prey for networks of traffickers and smugglers. According to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), some 4 million persons are victims of trafficking throughout the world and it is estimated that at least 500,000 women are brought into the territory of the European Union each year for degrading sex work. 53. Organized crime networks take advantage of the need for migrant workers in countries of destination and of the lack of opportunities in countries of origin and cheat, blackmail and create slavery-like dependence as a result of the vulnerable situation in which undocumented migrants find themselves. Employers who take advantage of undocumented workers and do not pay their employment and social security taxes are protected by their nationality. Since national laws penalize migrants, but not the traffickers, they create a favourable climate for exploitation and fraud, even where Governments do not intend such a thing to happen. The need for migrants and the fact that it is difficult for them to work regularly make them easy prey for these smuggling and trafficking networks. 54. It must also not be forgotten that exploitation is closely linked with the topic of concern to us. The exploitation of migrants by unscrupulous employers and contractors who pay lower wages than what they would pay a foreigner in a regular situation or a national only adds to the advantages they gain if they also do not pay their social security and taxes on the earnings from the labour of these persons. Such situations force these workers to put up with excessively long working hours and unacceptable security and hygiene conditions that gravely endanger their health. They enable unscrupulous employers and contractors to threaten migrants with the possibility that they will report their irregular status in the host country, even when such status has been caused by red tape in the country itself.