Vietnamese migration to the UK is the second highest after Albania and each year the numbers are rising. Not even the tragedy of the Essex lorry disaster in 2019 has been enough to put people off. Then 39 Vietnamese migrants suffocated in a container lorry as they came over the English channel. BBC journalist Nga Pham talks to people in Vietnam about their desperation to leave their country. Coming from some of the most economically deprived provinces, families pay between $30-45,000 to people smugglers to send hundreds of their children out each year in the hope of a better future. She meets people who are now working in the shadow economy in the UK, in nail bars, cannabis farms and restaurants, hiding in plain sight. She also talks to those who were caught up in trafficking networks, discovered by the police and deported back to Vietnam with nothing to show for their years of slave labour.

Reporter: Nga Pham
Producer: Anna Horsbrugh-Porter
A Just Radio production for the BBC World Service

(Image: A group of women harvest rice, Vietnam. Credit: BBC)