Poor migrant workers from neighboring Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos have poured into Thailand, accepting often dangerous jobs on fleets that are forced further out to sea because of depleted fishing grounds closer to shore.
Four
years after slavery, beatings and starvation were exposed on fishing fleets in
Southeast Asia, forcing governments to reform the multi-billion-dollar
industry, unscrupulous practices are still common, according to activists.
Fishermen
are trapped by large debts owed to their employers, and enforcement of the new
reforms meant to protect the workers are lacking, those helping fishing crews
in Thailand said.
“The
situation is better than before, but some workers are not receiving wages owed,
and forced labor is still happening outside national waters,” said local labor
rights activist Patima Tungpuchayakul.
The concerns come as a new movie “Buoyancy,” released in Australia in September, shines a fresh spotlight on the industry. It tells the story of a Cambodian boy who sets out to escape his family’s rural poverty but later discovers he has been sold by a broker. Trapped at sea on a Thai fishing trawler, he witnesses violence, torture and murder.
Watch the trailer for “Buoyancy” below:
Although
fictional, the feature film by Melbourne director Rodd Rathjen includes
experiences of characters based on interviews with slavery survivors. A series
of screenings in remote Cambodian villages are reportedly planned to raise
awareness of the risks.
Thailand,
one of the world’s largest exporters of seafood, has long relied on cheap labor
to support its vast industry that supplies global supermarkets with everything
from canned tuna to frozen prawns.
Poor
migrant workers from neighboring Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos have poured into
the kingdom, accepting often dangerous jobs on fleets that are forced further
out to sea because of depleted fishing grounds closer to shore.
Investigations
by media and rights groups in 2015 found thousands of workers were often forced
or tricked into working on fleets around the region, trapped at sea for months
where they were starved, whipped and forced to work until they dropped.
Thailand
introduced a raft of measures to crack down on the industry, after revelations of
the high-sea horrors prompted the EU to threaten to ban the kingdom’s exports
and the U.S. warned that it was not doing enough to tackle human trafficking.
Workers
under the age of 18 were barred from the industry, contracts were introduced,
fines increased, and an electronic transfer system required for payment of
wages. Inspections of boats were stepped up, and satellite technologies were
required on trawlers, so crew could contact families from sea.
But
rights groups say problems persist, including debt bondage in which workers
must pay off thousands of baht owed to bosses or middlemen before receiving
wages. The government launched a new registration process for migrant workers
as part of the reforms, so they can receive the same labor rights as local
hires. But employers are hitting workers earning as little as 10,000 baht (USD
330) a month with registration fees and other hidden costs, trapping them in
the workplace.
“The
prices are inflated and often workers don’t know how much the fees really are,
or what their rights are,” Tungpuchayakul, co-founder of the Labour Rights
Promotion Network Foundation, told UCA News.
Chonticha Tangworamongkon, director of the Human Rights and Development Foundation, which provides legal aid to migrant workers, said the process needed to be more transparent.
Workers also complained of middlemen or bosses confiscating their ATM cards, under the new electronic payments system, blocking access to their accounts, other activists said. Instead, bosses used the cards themselves to distribute wages in cash.
Tungpuchayakul
said she was also concerned about government inspection of boats after they
returned to shore, saying she feared some were procedural, focusing only on
correct paperwork.
“They don’t question or speak with workers to see if anything happened to them at sea. And the workers are too scared to say anything if bosses are there,” said Tungpuchayakul, who featured in a 2018 documentary “Ghost Fleet” about workers trapped in slavery in the industry.
The
Thai government says it is working hard to halt worker exploitation and insist they’re
committed to long-term reform. “We expect all migrant workers to be properly
documented and to be treated with equality and dignity under Thai law,” labor
ministry official Nakorn Wanpimool said recently.
Seafood
companies have also introduced new recruitment practices and other efforts to
clean up the industry that employs more than 600,000 people in Thailand, many
of them migrants. Some 3.9 million migrants from surrounding nations work in
Thailand, according to the International Organization for Migration.
But
a recent report underscored the difficulty facing reformers given that vessels
often operate outside national waters, where regulations maybe lax. Fishing in
remote waters for long periods, far from authorities, also raised risks for
crews, the report by the Environmental Justice Foundation said. Released in
June, the report detailed cases such as slavery, physical abuse and murder on
vessels in 12 countries, including an Indonesian man recruited onto a Taiwanese
longliner, who was beaten and abused and died on board four months later.
Illegal
fishing, driven by declining fish stocks and increased demand for cheap
seafood, increased the risks of slavery, since the vessels are already trying
to avoid detection and inspection.
Practices
such as trans-shipment, where the mother ship stays at sea, and use of flags of
convenience compounded the problem, making it more difficult to investigate
suspected cases of abuse, the report said.
“Trans-shipment
is often linked to other crimes (such as) people crime and drug smuggling,” the
U.N.’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, Peter Thomson, told this reporter in an interview.