‘We Have Voices But We Can’t Really Speak’: transnational privatisation and (de)juridification of women’s employment in global export manufacturing—a case study of Hansae Vietnam Co Ltd

ABSTRACT This paper explores the transnational regulatory structures governing the experiences of women workers in a garment export manufacturing complex in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It addresses their resistance to abuse outside the formal legal regimes of audits, grievances, and legal challenges. It then traces their experiences through the transnational regulatory framework which structures their work, as a means of testing the theorisation of emerging transnational legal models. In particular, the article will discuss the interactions of Vietnamese domestic law, international law, and private regulation by the factory owners and Nike, a prominent buyer, with respect to the specific placement of women in garment export manufacturing and their capacity to organise and gain legal relief. It concludes by stating that the privatisation of regulatory forms and procedures underway in the development of the transnational legal order significantly erodes workers’ legal rights and claim-making capacities, but countercurrents of grassroots resistance are also identifiable.