Combatting the Trafficking of Vietnamese Nationals to Britain: Cooperative Challenges for Vietnam and the UK

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, this is an important topic and the approach of looking at human trafficking through case study analysis of discrepancies between sending and receiving countries is compelling. A number of researchers have published on this topic through actual on the ground research and ethnographic analysis. The author has done something different here – they have focused on the topic through 3 case studies only.  This is an interesting and potentially refreshing approach. However, as it stands, there are some major problems that would need to be addressed before the article is ready for publication.

 

The first is the central argument.  Right now they are repeating or stating the obvious –  human trafficking is labor migration gone wrong. The three cases presented are similar to that of thousands if not millions of survivors of trafficking worldwide. What is missing is an original argument that is gestured to in the abstract – that the disconnects between sending and receiving country narratives and policies produce or exacerbate the experience of trafficking. But this is not fleshed out in the essay.  The piece seems descriptive in nature, but could gesture to some intriguing underlying questions. For instance, the author could focus on the question of how policies and stereotypes contribute to producing abuse. Many anthropologists have written about the issue of human trafficking and migration gone wrong (Carole Vance, Svati Shah, Denise Brennan, Sealing Cheng and others), and this body of literature deserves some mention in this article given the focus. The points this essay make are crucial, timely, and critical. But the author needs to provide some theoretical framing, analytical argument, and further literature to back up the claims.

 

The second issue is the methodology section. It is not clear whether or not the author did interviews with the three individuals who make up the case study. If they did so, why are the individuals not quoted? Also, were there interviews with policy makers? Some indication of the authors reflexivity and positionality would be helpful.

 

 

In addition, the writing is choppy at times and bounces around a bit so I do recommend aggressive editing.

 

In general, this piece has a lot of potential. The topics are timely and the research highly important, and unique. The essay brings up an important topic and is based on what could be an interesting and fresh take on a complicated subject. If the ideas and central themes could be developed a bit more, I think this would be of great interest to readers of your journals.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I would like to thank you for your helpfulness in providing such detailed feedback on my paper, which has afforded me the opportunity to reflect, revise, and improve my work. Here, I offer a brief explanation of the steps I have taken in light of the comments you have made.

In response to your feedback, I have utilised direct quotations, albeit using translation, from the participants in the study, rather than relying exclusively on paraphrasing their contributions. This now allows the reader to gain a more intimate insight into the participants’ experiences and thereby better appreciate the fear they experienced as they endured the reality of the horrors of modern slavery.

I have also included more references to the literature, which I have chosen carefully in order to include work by leading researchers and practitioners in the field, particularly those whose research has focused extensively on the trafficking of victims from Vietnam to the UK, and the plight of those victims once in the UK.  

In response to the specific recommendations regarding editing and restructuring, I have divided several of the lengthier paragraphs in the text, and in some places reordered my ideas, in order to make the text more readable and logical for the reader. In particular, I have grouped the part of the text in section 2, detailing the three participants, into three sub-sections – one for each participant – in the first instance, making the narrative of the story of each participant all the clearer. Thereafter, I have drawn their stories together in the discussion section, so that readers can appreciate overlapping themes across these narratives. 

I hope this level of revision is adequate, and I thank you again for the time you have given in reading this article and the insights which you have offered.

Kind regards,

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

I have no additional comments for authors who can be shown these comments. This is a short, well-structured and clearly written piece which is based on three case studies of Vietnamese nationals trafficked to the UK. Although this has been the subject of other writing, this piece has the merit of having considerable detail about the case both from the perspective of the\ victims and from that of authorities in the UK and Vietnam. It illustrates the deficiencies of  both countries' approach to the issue of trafficking: in the case of the UK, the support to victims is seen to be inadequate particularly because of the real possibility of deprtai0on as a result of a failed asylum claim when there is clear evidence of the strength of an asylum claim, and the continuing failure of the UK legal system not to persecute and imprison victims despite knowledge that they are victims (thus ignoring the S43 defence; ion the case of the Vietnamese authorities because of denial of the scope of trafficking or the role of deceit in recruiting victims to what they think are reasonable labour opportunities.

I think the article is a strong candidate for publication. I would simply amend it very slightly to stress even more strongly the fear that victims have of their perpetrators, and of the threat of deportation as motives for not attempting permanently to escape their 'capture'; and of the unhelpful continuing official policy of denial which seems to be prevalent in Vietnam itself. These contribute to the victims believing that it is their own fault that they have ended up being trafficked and allows the governments in both countries to collude with this belief and in the \UK case, even to put informal pressure on victims to be deported.

The paper needs some modest sub-editorial work to improve the English language, syntax and grammar but this should not take a great deal of time.

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

I would like to thank you for your helpfulness in providing such detailed feedback on my paper, which has afforded me the opportunity to reflect, revise, and improve my work. Here, I offer a brief explanation of the steps I have taken in light of the comments you have made.

In response to your feedback, I have utilised direct quotations, albeit using translation, from the participants in the study, rather than relying exclusively on paraphrasing their contributions. This now allows the reader to gain a more intimate insight into the participants’ experiences, and thereby better appreciate the fear they experienced as they endured the reality of the horrors of modern slavery.

I have also included more references to the literature, which I have chosen carefully in order to include work by leading researchers and practitioners in the field, particularly those whose research has focused extensively on the trafficking of victims from Vietnam to the UK, and the plight of those victims once in the UK.  

In response to the specific recommendations regarding editing and restructuring, I have divided several of the lengthier paragraphs in the text, and in some places reordered my ideas, in order to make the text more readable and logical for the reader. In particular, I have grouped the part of the text in section 2, detailing the three participants, into three subsections – one for each participant – in the first instance, making the narrative of the story of each participant all the clearer. Thereafter, I have drawn their stories together in the discussion section, so that readers can appreciate overlapping themes across these narratives. 

I hope this level of revision is adequate, and I thank you again for the time you have given in reading this article and the insights as well as the encouraging comments which you have offered.

Kind regards,

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is much improved and I appreciate the additional references and quotes that are provided.

One concern that remains is that the paper draws from only 3 case studies - this does not seem a large or deep enough data set for the large arguments made. However, I do feel it is improved in presentation. If the author could do a bit deeper research that would strengthen, but otherwise acceptable.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you again for your time reviewing my revised paper. I have made some amendment to include a paragraph to acknowledge the limitations of this paper, together with some explanation of the challenge faced or why the limitations exist. 

Thank you again for your thorough and helpful feedback!

Kind regards

Chung