The research topic chosen was about the forced labour and human trafficking in Thailand’s fishing industry. The topic was convincing, and focused on an important issue of human rights violations. The parent article that I had used for this topic was “Overcoming complexity in illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing to achieve effective regulatory pluralism” by Lindley & Techera, (2017). Upon reading this article, I had decided the strcture and concepts that I would use in my research. In order to augment my points, I needed a strong research support of relevant literature. Literature review is a reinforcement of one’s research standpoint using scholarly articles and reviews of similar works. They are secondary sources, the primary source being one’s own paper (Hart, 2018). In order to enable clarity in my literature search, I decided to revisit the purpose of my research, which was to serve as a bride between the workers and the workplace, to ensure that a strict vigilance is maintained to avoid any trafficking or abuse of employees, and that human rights is observed at all places.
I made extensive use of the internet for this literature review, including news items, scholarly articles, books, various presentations, and perspectives. The above mentioned deconstructed elements of my topic were used as keywords for my search.
After narrowing down my search topics, I set a timeline filter for my search, for ten years, i.e. only the data from 2008 to 2018 would be considered for the study. This would help maintain the relevance of the research. However, I made a study of certain research and important documents that were published before 2008 as well, in order to gain a perspective. As the internet has many sources that are not verified, for my search I took the content only from the sources that were peer-reviewed and verified, such as Google Scholar, Google Books, and Google News. Thus, I could ascertain the authority of the paper, the affirmation of the source website, and the accuracy of the content. In the internet search, I had used the “advanced web search” strategy, which provides the user the flexibility to search the internet with the exact keywords one wants, and also to avoid the terms one does not want. For example, to search data for a particular topic, my primary keywords were “human trafficking”, “Thailand”, “fisheries” and “illegal”. Upon computing them in the search engine, I got many results, but many of them involved the word “Indonesia”, which was also facing a similar problem. However, I needed to eliminate those results which were irrelevant, so I typed “Indonesia” in the advanced search box with the options “to avoid”. Thus, I got only the desired results, and could proceed on with collecting literature.
First, I researched upon the topic “Human Rights”, and “Human Rights Violations”. The relevant source for this would be the United Nations’ Human Rights declaration. So, the appropriate content for this was taken from the website of the UN. Literature on how human trafficking is a violation, and the necessary actions needed to be taken, was searched, and relevant articles cited (Lee, 2013), (Shelley, 2010). Next, the keyword “Fishing industry in Thailand” was computed, and relevant research was found. Here, information about the industry, its workings, its revenue, the ethico-legal issues it has been embroiled into, and the major issues faced by it, etc were collected (Sylwester, 2014). The issue of human trafficking in Thailand’s fishing industry is a serious issue, and a lot of articles were found on the internet about it (Chantavanich, Laodumrongchai, & Stringer, 2016), (Rukumnuaykit, 2009). However, here is where one must exercise judiciousness, and select only the articles that would be trustworthy, such as newspaper articles and peer reviewed journals which have the same content as in their print version, and official reports and releases. Even though the newspaper sources are considered up-to-date, they lack in the analytical area, thus are less preferred to journal articles (Auethavornpipat, 2018), (Human Rights Watch, 2018). However, they can be used to augment the strength of the source, as a journal article with a supporting news item from the current times would have more relevance and validation than one without.
After collecting the sources, the next step is to compile them in order. The structure of one’s literature review depends on the type of research, and the chosen area of emphasis. One must always remember that reviewing literature is a dynamic process which is not over till the conclusion is written, as in topics involving the law such as this, any breakthrough might occur anytime, and might augment to the research better than the existing sources. In this research, in addition to the parent source, I had used fifteen sources, which upon deconstructing; consist of one supporting article for human rights, two for human trafficking, one for the fisheries industry in Thailand, three for the human rights violations in the industry, two for evidences on malpractices on the employees, three for government’s legal standing on the issue, and three for the future prospects on the issue. For the two penultimate points, the information that was obtained was contradicting; the evidences report human rights violation, (Larsen, 2010), (Gozdiak, 2011) while the government denies allegations, saying that the situation is under close monitoring (Marschke & Vandergeest, 2016), (Gallagher & Holmes, 2008). Here, both the versions have been detailed, and this gap being the crux of my research paper, I had focused more on this, bringing in relevant supporting documents for both sides of the argument.
After collecting and compiling the sources, I had to perform an assessment of the articles, which consisted of the article’s clarity of the goal, whether it is properly cited, whether the literature cited in the article are relevant to the study, whether the evidence is properly interpreted, whether the article has kept the scope open for further discussions, whether the language is reader-friendly, etc. A review and critique of every article that I have chosen had to be made, in order to ensure that in my article there were no issues with the literature review. The above sources were written as annotated bibliographies, with references from other literature cited in-text. All referred literature was properly cited in the APA format, and the reference list was computed. However, as the topic contains critical and dynamic information on law and ethics, enough space was left to accommodate latest developments on the issue if any, without making the literature review any lengthier than prescribed. The final step is the writing of the literature review, and placing the annotations in their respective places, after ordering them in logical sequence.
With the above experiences in researching about how to structure a proper literature review, I am confident that I will be able to compute a clear, comprehensive, and a structured literature review in an organized graduation, for example from knowing the basic human rights to the points to be considered to curb human rights violation in the fishing industry in Thailand. A good literature review is half the research done, and it must be computed with complete logic and relevance, in order to make the research experience a better one.
Reference
Auethavornpipat, R. (2018, September 1). Govt sincerity on migrant rights faces fishing pact test. Bangkok Post .
Chantavanich, S., Laodumrongchai, S., & Stringer, C. (2016). Under the shadow: Forced labour among sea fishers in Thailand. Marine Policy , 1-7.
Gallagher, A., & Holmes, P. (2008). Developing an effective criminal justice response to human trafficking: Lessons from the front line. International criminal justice review , 318-343.
Gozdiak, E. (2011). Data and research on human trafficking: Bibliography of research-based literature. Diane Publishing.
Hart, C. (2018). Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Research Imagination. Sage.
Human Rights Watch. (2018, August 31). Forced labour blights Thailand’s fishing industry: HRW. Al Jazeera News .
Larsen, J. (2010). Migration and people trafficking in southeast Asia. Trends and issues in crime and criminal justice .
Lee, M. (2013). Introduction: Understanding human trafficking. In M. Lee, Human trafficking (pp. 13-37). Wilan.
Lindley, J., & Techera, E. (2017). Overcoming complexity in illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing to achieve effective regulatory pluralism. Marine Policy , 71-79.
Marschke, M., & Vandergeest, P. (2016). Slavery scandals: Unpacking labour challenges and policy responses within the off-shore fisheries sector. Marine Policy , 39-46.
Rukumnuaykit, P. (2009). A synthesis report on labour migration policies, management and immigration pressure in Thailand. Thailand: International Labour organization.
Shelley, L. (2010). Human trafficking: A global perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Sylwester, J. (2014). Fishers of men: the neglected effects of environmental depletion on labor trafficking in the Thai fishing industry. Pacific Rim Law and Policy journal , 423.
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