| Thailand - 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. 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 IOM website. For more information, please contact: Chris Lom
at IOM Bangkok
Tel: +66.819275215
E-mail: clom@iom.int | 
Documentary - "The Dark Side of Chocolate" reveals the fact behind the sweet chocolates we have very easily without thinking about the actual thing. Children eat chocolates every day of the year. They enjoy the delicious taste of cocoa, which originated in Africa. But behind the production of their delicious treats, there is another taste altogether: the taste of child abusers and child slavery. This program brings the chocolate makers to book, and confront them with visual evidence. it also reveals the conditions under which the apparently innocuous chocolate bar is produced, and thereafter follow the coco beans’ route from the plantation to the chocolate bar in Germany, all with the consumer oblivious to the full story behind what their chocolate bar actually contains.
ReplyDeleteTo watch please visit - http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/4809