Migrant Smuggling in Asia - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

of draw<strong>in</strong>g the l<strong>in</strong>e between empirical and nonempirically
based research. As a result, a number of
non-empirical sources were <strong>in</strong>itially <strong>in</strong>cluded. It is
likely this was mostly remedied by the subsequent
manual check<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>in</strong>dividual sources by the
research team. However, it is also the case that it was
very di�cult or impossible to judge whether or not
some sources re�ected a research process. As such, it
is likely that some non-empirical sources have been
<strong>in</strong>cluded <strong>in</strong> the �nal data-set, and some empiricallybased
sources may have been excluded.
It was not possible <strong>in</strong> the time available to cross-check
the entire set of sources that were <strong>in</strong>itially identi�ed
and reviewed by the researchers and rejected as be<strong>in</strong>g
outside of criteria. Given the volume of material
that was be<strong>in</strong>g reviewed, it is highly likely that there
were at least some sources that were discarded as not
relevant, that probably should have been <strong>in</strong>cluded.
It was not anticipated <strong>in</strong> the research methodology
that most empirically-based sources would
nonetheless <strong>in</strong>clude <strong>in</strong>formation that drew primarily
on the exist<strong>in</strong>g literature. As such, it was often the
case that while the research �nd<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>in</strong> the source
itself were empirically based, the particular section
of the source that discussed a relevant topic (such as
‘pro�le of smugglers’) was <strong>in</strong> fact based on a review
of the literature.
Structure of the report
�is report is divided <strong>in</strong>to two publications.
�e �rst publication conta<strong>in</strong>s the �ematic Review
of Literature and is structured <strong>in</strong>to 15 chapters.
Chapter One “Cross-country �nd<strong>in</strong>gs by thematic
issues” draws on all of the literature identi�ed <strong>in</strong> the
review. As there are so many disparate sources, this
chapter is necessarily broad, provid<strong>in</strong>g illustrative
examples of key po<strong>in</strong>ts noted <strong>in</strong> the literature. �e
other 14 chapters are country chapters that review
<strong>in</strong>-depth the identi�ed literature for each of the 14
countries, by reference to key themes.
�e second publication conta<strong>in</strong>s the Annotated
Bibliography. �is <strong>in</strong>cludes a summary of each of
the sources identi�ed by the research, and a set of key
words for each source. It is hoped that this will make
the task of identify<strong>in</strong>g relevant literature on particular
aspects of migrant smuggl<strong>in</strong>g more e�cient.
References
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