Impact in Qualitative Research: Ella Parry-Davies on co-researching outcomes for domestic workers after trafficking and exploitation

Dr Ella Parry-Davies is a lecturer at King’s College London, where she works on social justice-focussed research in collaboration with experts-by-experience, primarily in the migration and anti-trafficking sectors. Taking up performance as a co-creative research method, she has worked most extensively with migrant domestic workers in the UK and Lebanon, and her book Intimate Inequalities: Performing Migrant Domestic Work is forthcoming with Northwestern University Press in September 2025. In this blog post she discusses the findings of research on the outcomes for workers who had survived trafficking and returned to the Philippines as their country of origin.

How do survivors of human trafficking rebuild their lives when they return to their countries of origin, and what barriers do they face in doing so? How can the countries they were trafficked to facilitate their recovery? And how can survivors themselves be in the driving seat of anti-trafficking research and policy?

These were some of the questions explored through Survivor Futures, a collaborative research project that has brought King’s College London into partnership with the UK-based organisations Voice of Domestic Workers, Kalayaan and After Exploitation.

Around 11.5 million migrant domestic workers currently travel across the world to provide the essential services of caregiving and maintenance in their employers’ homes. Survivor Futures investigated the outcomes for workers who had survived trafficking and returned to the Philippines as their country of origin.

Research was carried out by KCL’s Dr Ella Parry-Davies and six UK-based co-researchers who are Filipino domestic workers and survivors of trafficking, Marigold Balquen, Mimi Jalmasco, Karen, Saharah Mamatas, Wendelyn Nova and Yolly Santos from the Voice of Domestic Workers. The group interviewed 22 survivors who had returned to the Philippines after experiences of exploitation.

“A safe and dignified return”: Not the reality faced by survivors

The researchers found that over half of the interviewees could not meet the cost of basic needs such as food, education, or healthcare. Sabrina said, “Sometimes I borrow food just to have a meal for a day”. 73% of interviewees had not received any support from the state or NGOs since their return and faced barriers such as the costs of traveling to support services’ offices, or requirements to provide personal documents that had been confiscated by traffickers. Weng received “no assistance at all from them. It was really hard. I had to start from scratch again.” For many survivors, “starting from scratch” involves recovering from debt, physical and mental ill-health, and what one co-researcher called the “multiple trauma” that compounds trafficking itself with abandonment by support services after exploitation.

One interviewee, Animor, passed away shortly after the interview at 47 years old, denied support and unable to afford the healthcare she needed following overwork and malnutrition abroad. Significantly, 77% of the interviewees were planning to migrate again, demonstrating the high risk of re-trafficking that survivors face when a “safe and dignified return” just is not a reality.

Co-researchers emphasised the dehumanising – and in some cases fatal – experience of being denied access to support. Writing for OpenDemocracy, two of the co-researchers highlighted that they had themselves faced similar barriers to accessing support in the UK.

Improving the chances for survivors’ futures: what could the UK do?

UK authorities could support survivors in rebuilding their lives after exploitation. This involves acknowledging that the Philippines cannot currently be considered a country of origin where sustainable reintegration is a likelihood for survivors. As this research showed, effective and appropriate support is rarely accessible to survivors in real terms.

The data currently used by UK authorities to determine survivors’ futures – such as the US Trafficking in Persons report, or the Home Office’s own report on the Philippines – are sorely lacking in their understanding of the realities faced by survivors. They highlight services that exist in theory, but are not reaching the people who need them. These reports need to be complemented by research that hears directly from survivors themselves.

Key changes to policy and legislation on migrant domestic work could help protect and support survivors who are trafficked to the UK. Around 18,000 domestic workers arrive in the UK each year. Some escape abusive employers and are referred to the National Referral Mechanism for Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery (NRM). But those who are referred to the NRM more than six months after their arrival in the UK do not have the right to work while they wait for a decision about their status and support. In research by Kalayaan, workers referred to the NRM waited on average 24 months – one as long as 37 months – for a decision. Workers said they felt “worthless, subservient and punished by a system meant to protect them.” If all domestic workers in the NRM had the right to work, their chances of social, psychological and economic recovery would be improved.

Currently, migrant domestic workers in the UK work under a restrictive short-term visa, which means that even if the worker escapes an abusive employer, they often cannot find another job. Nor can they successfully bring a claim against them because they have to leave the UK when their 6-month visa expires. This makes it almost impossible to challenge exploitation and abuse. A recent survey by LSE and the Voice of Domestic Workers found that nearly all respondents worked around the clock, earning just 52 pence per hour. Since the introduction of the restrictive visa in 2012, abuse has dramatically increased, with 40% of workers assessed by Kalayaan in 2024 presenting indicators of trafficking, as opposed to 14% for those who arrived in the UK prior to the change.

Migrant domestic workers and their allies have been battling the restrictive visa, and the systemic modern slavery it facilitates, for 13 years. For UK policymakers to fulfil their pledge to help reduce the risk to workers under the Overseas Domestic Worker visa, it is essential to implement a renewable visa with a path to permanent settlement and the unconditional right to change employers.

Survivors in the driving seat of change

At the root of many of the barriers to rebuilding their lives after exploitation is the fact that survivors are not listened to by those who are meant to support them. This means that the burden of evidence of abuse falls on the very people who have had their phones and documents confiscated, that support services can be inappropriate or inaccessible, and that protective legislation is not forthcoming.

Survivor Futures was driven by survivors themselves: the co-researchers who devised the research questions, conducted the interviews, analysed the data, wrote the recommendations and are now sharing original insights with frontline practitioners and policymakers to bring about improvements.

Survivors are calling for change. Now it is up to decision-makers to listen.