"Migrant Smuggling in Asia: A !ematic Review of Literature and the accompanying annotated bibliography o#er a consolidation of !ndings contained in research literature that analyses migrant smuggling in Asia either directly or indirectly. !e review of the available body of empirical knowledge aimed to create an information base and identify the gaps in what is known about the smuggling of migrants around and out of the region. By consolidating the information currently accessible on migrant smuggling, the !ematic Review of Literature looks to stimulate and guide further research that will contribute to informing evidencebased policies to prevent and combat the smuggling of migrants while upholding and protecting the rights of those who are smuggled. "e United Nations O$ce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) conducted the research in support of the Bali Process, which is a regional, multilateral process to improve cooperation against migrant smuggling, tra$cking in persons and related forms of transnational crime. !e systematic search for research literature in English, French and German covered an eight-year period (1 January 2004 to 31 March 2011) and 14 countries (Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, "ailand and Viet Nam). Primary research, such as the collection of statistics from national authorities, was not part of the project. "e project began with a search of 44 databases, one meta-library catalogue, three institution-speci!c library catalogues and 39 websites of institutions that work on migrant smuggling. "is resulted in 845 documents that were then closely reviewed against a set of further elaborated criteria. Ultimately, 154 documents were critically reviewed and formed the basis of this report. Abstracts of those documents are provided in Migrant Smuggling in Asia: An Annotated Bibliography. "e systematic search also included literature regarding irregular migration and human tra$cking &ows not only because migrant smuggling takes place within irregular migration but to learn more about the relationship between migrant smuggling, irregular migration and human tra"cking. A highly fragmented information base: Knowledge gaps prevail Of the 154 documents reviewed, 75 of them provided information about migrant smuggling, 117 provided information about irregular migration and 66 provided information about human tra$cking. Keeping in mind that some countries within the research scope are major sources of migrant smuggling and irregular migration, these !gures illustrate that migrant smuggling has not attracted a critical amount of attention within the research community. Accurate data on the extent of migrant smuggling either rarely exists or could not be accessed by researchers. "e reviewed literature re&ects the paucity of and/or shortcomings in o$cial quantitative data in many countries and the di$culties in accessing data that would allow a better grasp of both the extent of irregular migration and to what extent irregular migration is facilitated by migrant smugglers. !e available research literature on irregular migration contributes only in a limited way to increasing the understanding of migrant smuggling due to a lack of clarity with the terminology. Common is the use of terms that are not further de!ned, such as “illegal migrant”, “broker”, “agent” and “recruiter”. "is ambiguity signi!cantly has limited the capacity of the literature on irregular migration to clarify to what extent migrant smugglers facilitate irregular migration and how..."