State of world population 2006

This year's report focuses on the lives of migrant women, who constitute almost half of all international migrants worldwide, some 95 million. Every year these women working overseas send hundreds of millions of dollars in remittances back to their homes and communities. These funds go to feed and educate children, provide health care, build homes, foster small businesses and generally improve living standards for loved ones left behind. For host countries, the labour of migrant women is so embedded in the fabric of society that it goes virtually unnoticed. But migration, whilst offering opportunities for economic advancement and relief from oppression and discrimination, has its darker side: enslavement of trafficking victims and the exploitation of domestic workers.