In this targeted, exploratory research project, Verité examined three illustrative transnational migrant worker recruitment corridors – Nepal to Qatar, Myanmar to Malaysia, and Myanmar to Thailand – to identify the points in the recruitment process where bribes or illicit payments are solicited and paid; the entities implicated; the range and nature of such payments; and the corresponding benefit that accrues to the employers of migrant workers. For comparison purposes, Verité also highlighted the resultant fee burden borne by migrants in each of the recruitment corridors. While these three corridors represent a large, diverse set of challenges, business sectors, governance models, and institutional relationships, we are not claiming that they are representative of the entirety of the global labor recruitment industry. And the sheer complexity of the corruption dynamic is such that we are definitely not claiming the results in this report are authoritative and complete.

Yet, even an exploratory research effort such as this one yields striking results...