Interregional and international migration is occurring at a faster rate today than at any other point in history, and currently there are an estimated 175 million people living outside their country of birth, approximately 49 percent of whom are women (IOM 2005). Women’s involvement across all forms of migration is growing, both in terms of the number of female migrants and in the role women play in utilizing migration strategies to improve the economic well-being of the family. For instance, the majority of persons trafficked are women, and women account for about 70 percent of the estimated 25 million persons internally displaced by conflict (Alicea and Toro-Morn 2004; IOM 2005). Increasingly, women are also exercising career and economic choices that involve movement from rural to urban areas and also to other countries. Emergent labor shortages in richer countries—which are linked to improved options for women in those countries, with more women opting out of jobs with low status and undesirable hours—have resulted in the specific targeting of women workers from poorer countries. In some countries women make up the greatest percentage of migrant workers; for example, the majority of workers migrating from the Philippines to the Middle East are women (IOM 2005). Set against realignments in world politics, facilitated by globalization, and fueled by social and personal factors, the migration of women workers also reflects new directions for women’s agency. For example, as an increasing number of women take on the lead-migrant role