In the crusade against organized crime, it has become more and more accepted that the often trans-border crime cannot sufficiently be tackled by enhanced enforcement and cooperation between states alone. An alternative tool may be what can be termed the instrumentalization of the victims to enable the prosecution of organized criminals. This brings to the fore the dilemma that the victims are often themselves offenders, as a rule, breaching provisions of immigration law. Therefore, it is typically not in their interest to bring offences of trafficking and smuggling, of which they are the victims, to the attention of the authorities. Initiatives at the international and EU/EC level, which grant limited residence rights to those victims who collaborate in the prosecution of the offenders, attempt to deal with this conflict of interest. This implies at least a partial recognition of the status of the victim.