11 Burmese ‘Slaves’ Rescued From Thai Fishing Boats | The Irrawaddy Magazine

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By LAWI WENG / THE IRRAWADDY| June 14, 2012 |


Eleven Burmese migrants were rescued when the fishing boats they were forced to work on were raided by a team of Thai Department of Special Investigation (DSI) officers on Wednesday at Tambon Saem San in Chonburi near Bangkok.

Sompong Sakaew, the director of the Labor Rights Protection Network (LPN), told The Irrawaddyon Thursday that DSI police officers raided two boats in Saem San port the evening before.

An LPN representative who witnessed the raid on the fishing boats said the DSI officers arrested three Mon men who had allegedly bought the 11 Burmese migrants, then forced them to work on the boats 20 hours a day for wages of just 30 baht (US $1) per day.

Among the three suspects is a 15-year-old youth, he said, adding that the raid had been conducted after a phone call from one of the victims alerted the DSI.

The 11 reportedly told their rescuers that they had been held as “slaves” on the fishing boats for seven months.

The victims apparently crossed over the Thai-Burmese border near Mae Sot with the assistance of brokers and were then handed to ethnic Mon employment agents in Thailand who in turn arranged for them to work on the fishing boats.

“The broker in Mae Sot first told the victims they would work at a fisheries plant, not on board trawlers,” the LPN representative said. “That’s why they agreed to come.”

“The employers bought the victims for 8,000 baht [$265] each from the broker,” said the LPN representative. “Then they forced them to work, but did not pay them salaries.”

He said that the victims had been interviewed after the raid, and had told officers that they had been locked on board the vessels, had been poorly fed, and had been beaten when they could not work.

He said that the 11 are being held at a safe house in Chonburi and will be deported to the Thai-Burmese border after the authorities have concluded their investigation of the case.

Human trafficking is very prevalent in central Thailand where there is a large fishing industry. Many Burmese migrants seek work in the area and end up being trafficked to fishing boats and forced to work for many months at sea for little or no pay.

According to a US report, the Thai government “reported 18 convictions in trafficking-related cases in 2010—an increase from eight known convictions during the previous year. As of May 2011, only five of the 18 convictions reported by the government could be confirmed as trafficking offenses.”

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Burmese ‘Slaves’ Rescued from Thai Factory | The Irrawaddy Magazine

http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/4445

Source:  The Irrawaddy Magazine

By KHIN OO THAR / THE IRRAWADDY| May 17, 2012

Burmese workers are provided with food at a police station after being rescued. (Photo: BAT)

Nearly 150 Burmese migrant workers, who for up to two years had been locked inside a shrimp 
factory in Mahachai near Bangkok, were rescued on Tuesday by Thai police and social 
organizations.

Kyaw Thaung, a spokesperson for the Burmese Association in Thailand (BAT), told The Irrawaddythat his organization found out about the workers through an employee who had escaped.

“There are 146 workers altogether. They were placed in the basement underneath the factory and forced to work like slaves,” said Kyaw Thaung.

He said the BAT staff informed local authorities about the conditions in the factory and the plight of the desperate workers, but were told they would have to produce stronger evidence, such as photographs or videos, before the authorities could take further action.

The staffer, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Irrawaddy that he had to risk his life to obtain such evidence.

“I had to shoot photos and videos secretly, and I was afraid of being found out by the factory thugs or the police. I don’t have any documents to stay in Thailand,” he said.

After his evidence was submitted to local Thai police and a UN agency, the factory owner, Burmese charge-hands and security guards were arrested, and the workers were finally freed from bondage.

The rescue effort also reportedly involved the BAT, the Anti-Human Trafficking Division of the Royal Thai Police (AHTD), United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), the Foundation for Education and Development (FED) based in Thailand’s Phang Nga Province, and the Burmese embassy in Bangkok.

A male worker who escaped from virtual slavery told The Irrawaddy that some of the victims were trapped there for up to two years and that when unwell were not allowed to receive medical treatment. Everybody had to work approximately 20 hours a day without any days off, he said.

He also said that Kyaw Soe, the Burmese charge-hand who was arrested together with the factory owner, treated the workers cruelly and even slapped their faces sometimes.

“Once I got out of the factory, I felt I had gone from hell to heaven,” he said.

On May 15, Thai police in nearby Samut Prakan Province arrested more than 1,000 migrant workers, 386 of whom were from Burma, while the rest were from Laos and Cambodia. The arrest was carried out due to alleged drug dealing by some workers, Thai newspapers reported.

According to organizations assisting migrant workers in Thailand, there are about four million Burmese, only half of whom have official documents, currently working in the kingdom