DOI: 10.17037/data.00000709
title: Occupational risks, health needs and victim identification of trafficked fishermen in the Greater Mekong Subregion – Interview transcripts

description: Transcripts from semi-structured interviews performed with 33 key informants during August - October 2014. Interviews explored factors influencing health of migrant and trafficked fishermen in Thailand during the pre-trafficking, trafficking and post-trafficking stages, and factors influencing how potentially trafficked fishermen were identified and assisted. Informants were comprised of Labour, health or welfare officials [9], Law enforcement officers [6], NGO service providers [12], INGO representatives [3] and Industry representatives [3].
description: Semi-structured interviews were conducted between August to October 2014 with 33 key informants  - 9 Labour, health or welfare officials (Off.), 6 Law enforcement officers (LE), 12 NGO service providers (NGO), 3 INGO representatives (INGO), and 3 Industry representatives (Ind.). Most (n=24) were frontline responders to potentially trafficked fishermen and nine were policy stakeholders; this breakdown by sector is not shown above to safeguard participant anonymity. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to recruit participants, based on an initial sample frame of service providers compiled from reviewing reports and policy documents. Government agency participants were a mix of senior and frontline officials involved in various aspects of rescues, victim screening and labour inspections, including: the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare (DLPW); the Department of Employment (DOE); Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS); Department of Fisheries (DOF); Marine Department; Royal Thai Police (RTP) and Marine Police; Department of Special Investigation (DSI); and the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH). Officials from these agencies formed the Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) primarily responsible for victim screening but who were also mobilized to perform joint labour inspections at the time of data collection. NGO participants were less diverse, usually providing health and welfare services to migrant and Thai fishermen. For two larger NGOs, multiple participants (n=2-3) were interviewed where the participants’ roles differed drastically (e.g. legal services or frontline response). Industry participants were industry representatives who had previously been employers of fishermen. A provincial port research site and major fishing hub was chosen as the primary location to interview frontline responders (not named to preserve the anonymity of participants), followed by Bangkok, where senior officials and NGO management were usually based. Twenty interviews were conducted in Thai with one of two research assistant interpreters, who were trained on topic guide content and interview technique. One interview was conducted with assistance from a Burmese interpreter working at the organization, with the remaining 12 interviews conducted in English. Interviews lasted 1.5 hours on average. Questions focused on participant’s experiences of directly assisting fishermen, or on colleagues’ experiences of doing so in their organization (for senior officials who guided policy). Participants were also asked their opinions about labour inspections, migrant registration drives and victim screening processes, and the challenges they faced conducting any of these tasks.  Written informed consent was obtained from each participant. Except for one interview, interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim to English (including the interview in Burmese, where the interpreter’s words were transcribed due to difficulties finding a Burmese transcriber) or Thai and subsequently translated to English.