Much concern has focused on large-scale organized criminal gangs, but many trafficking networks are informal, local, and lack a criminal mastermind. Legal recruitment agencies or individuals and small- and medium-scale networks may be just as dangerous to women as organized crime. Trafficking is a complex phenomenon and different people play many roles in facilitating it.

• Investors - who fund trafficking.
• Recruiters – who find people to traffic; they are often members of the same community.
• Transporters – who facilitate the departure and transnational movement of trafficked persons.
• Corrupt public officials – who assist in obtaining unlawful travel document, or accept bribes to enable migrants to enter/exit illegally.
• Informers – who investigate immigration and transit procedures, asylum systems, and border crossings.
• Supporting personnel and specialists – who provide other services such as accommodation.
• Debt-collectors – who collects fees.
• Money movers – who launders the proceeds of trafficking.

List proposed by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Trafficking is characterized by different recruitment methods which vary from country to country and have changed over time. As some victims are kidnapped, others are duped by fraudulent job offers. Recruitment through job advertisements and job agencies is often used but may be less common in some countries where awareness-raising strategies addressed this recruitment technique. Instead, recruitment strategies such as the “lover boy method”, female recruiter (often victims or former victims), recruitment by male/female couples, acquaintance etc are employed. Victims of trafficking come to realize much too late the high-paying job will never materialize.