Human Trafficking Rife in Thai Fishing Industry, Says IOM Report
Human trafficking in Thailand's multi-billion dollar fishing
industry – a major international supplier of seafood and the
world's largest exporter of shrimp and canned tuna – is
widespread, according to an IOM report published this week.
The report "Trafficking of Fishermen in Thailand," which was
commissioned with funding from the US State Department's Office to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and authored by Philip
Robertson, points to informal recruitment processes and lax
regulation which has led to the abuse of thousands of migrant
workers in the industry over the past two decades.
According to the report, which has been submitted to Thailand's
National Committee on the Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking
in Persons, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kachornprasart,
and includes input from several Thai government departments, the
trafficking of migrant labour to Thai fishing boats effectively
started in the 1990's.
Following a deadly 1989 typhoon, Thai fishermen from the poor
Northeast of the country largely abandoned the sector, leaving
remaining boat owners in desperate need of labour. Burmese,
Cambodian and Lao migrant workers began to be recruited and
informal migrant and Thai labour brokers stepped in to facilitate
the process.
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target="_blank" title="">Trafficking of Fishermen in
Thailand
Since then, young migrants desperate for work have been
frequently deceived by promises of well paid jobs aboard the boats,
but are in fact sold to boat owners. They then have to work to pay
off the money paid by the boat owner to the broker before being
paid any wages.
Depending on the amount paid, a trafficked fisherman could often
work from one to eight months before earning any wages for
himself.
In some cases, depending on the boat captain or owner,
trafficked fishermen may work without pay for years on boats that
are serviced by supply ships and rarely return to port, according
to the report.
Working conditions are extremely hard. Fishermen are expected to
work 18 to 20 hours of manual labour per day, seven days per week.
Sleeping and eating is possible only when the nets are down and
recently caught fish have been sorted.
They live in cramped quarters, face shortages of fresh water and
must work even when tired or ill, thereby risking injury to
themselves or others. Fishermen who do not perform according to the
expectations of the boat captain may face severe beatings or other
forms of physical maltreatment, denial of medical care and, in the
worst cases, maiming or killing, the report claims.
Only a small percentage of foreign workers on fishing boats have
proper documentation and work permits; and virtually none of the
workers have written employment contracts. On land in Thailand,
there is widespread use of informal "identification cards" which
offer some protection from arrest by local police, but have no
legal basis in either Thai immigration or labour legislation. This
means that victims risk arrest and deportation if they try to
escape.
At sea, on boats leaving Thai waters, boat captains often hold
fraudulent Thai Seafarer books issued with the photo (but not the
real name or bio-data) of each fisherman, but usually do not
release these to the crew while in foreign ports, thereby further
diminishing any legal protection afforded by the document
abroad.
Thai fishing vessels ply the territorial waters of dozens of
nations, especially Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia and Vietnam, and travel as far as Somalia and other parts
of the coast of East Africa.
The report aims to provide a better understanding of the
recruitment, living and working conditions of fishermen and the
extent of exploitation and abuse in the Thai fishing sector.
It reviews the legislative and regulatory framework governing
the fishing sector and the recruitment of fishermen and its
implementation, highlighting certain gaps which enable traffickers
to operate in the sector and lead to abusive labour conditions. It
also examines protection and support services accessible by victims
of trafficking.
The report is available for download from the
"paragraph-link-no-underline" href=
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target="_blank">IOM website.
For more information, please contact:
Chris Lom
at IOM Bangkok
Tel: +66.819275215
E-mail:
"mailto:clom@iom.int">clom@iom.int