Slavery Aboard Asia's Fishing Vessels | Undercover Asia | Full Episode

for decades thousands of vulnerable migrants have been forced to work on illegal fishing boats in the deep ocean cheated into dangerous unpaid labor beaten and stopped they suffered for years without help while thousands were liberated many have been forgotten or abandoned [Music] new rules have been put in place but exploitation and corruption continue forest labor is still continuing under this condition [Music] can those fighting back put an end to slavery at sea [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] works at the labor protection network they support migrant workers especially exploited fishermen soon began traveling to indonesia to follow up on reports of workers trafficked onto thai fishing vessels in remote indonesian waters and was just 17 years old when he was tricked into getting on a boat he was trapped there for five years but is oh [Music] my decades of overfishing in thai waters push fishing boats out to more remote and disputed areas workers normally migrants from thailand's neighboring countries were taken to illegal offshore fishing vessels miles from land smaller boats transferred the catch to thailand so the illegal vessels could avoid going into ports workers were issued fake identity papers in case of spot checks out of desperation many workers tried to escape but died while trying to swim to shore even those who made it were imprisoned or stranded in some of the most remote places in the world [Music] [Music] in response to these revelations the indonesian government started banning thai fishing vessels from their waters in 2014 they arranged to send those rescued home arrested the boat captains and sun dozens of illegal foreign fishing boats in a dramatic display of force [Music] and the story gained the world's attention pressure on the thai government increased and they too began to make changes the initial pressure came from the media expose global attention focused on thai fishing and the seafood industry but it was soon followed by pressure from the american government they changed their rating they downgraded the thai effort combat trafficking and the european union laid on the thai industry a yellow card a warning that kind of negative attention created pressure on the government and on the industry to fix not just the illegal fishing problem but the labor problem too [Music] thailand is the fourth largest seafood exporter in the world the industry employs more than 800 000 people bringing in over 6 billion us dollars every year uh three additional speakers who are here with us today mr jason george after the eu yellow card was issued the thai government began working with the international labour organization a united nations agency to improve laws that would apply to the fishing industry the changes to the thai legal framework changes to thai law over the last few years have been a big deal among other things the thai government has applied labor law that applied to work on land to work on the sea that's a big deal the thai government also ratified a couple of ilo conventions [Music] at this point we don't have any human trafficking at all in the history the upper part of the country still a lot of problems it's a big country but officially it's easily monitored so i don't think we have any at all but a recent ilo report reveals otherwise we ran through the elements of forced slap involuntariness coercion and in the end determined that 14 of the fissures we surveyed are in forced labor situations the new rules have changed the nature of exploitation but they have not eradicated it forced labor has to have two elements the work has to be involuntary and it has to be coercive in thai fishing not too many years ago there was a much higher level of violence threats of violence that was used to hold fissures on boats and now we see something different in that it's harder to see and it's usually connected to pay and debt and withholding of payment more than 90 of thailand's fishing industry workforce are migrants from some of the poorest parts of southeast asia so how do these vulnerable workers end up risking their freedom and their lives works at the migrant education center in kartham a myanmar border town next to ranon one of thailand's busiest ports every day he helps myanmar people crossing back from thailand with paperwork and legal issues today he's assisting a woman whose husband died on a thai fishing boat and whose body was lost [Music] [Music] foreign in 2015 at the height of the crackdown mo wei was right in the thick of it you see your child as part of thailand's new initiative to stop trafficking it sends naval patrols to inspect fishing boats far from shore but they needed help communicating with the myanmar workers on board used to work on fishing boats himself and he knows the risks better than most mothers my most of the workers are recruited from myanmar's impoverished southern regions where jobs are scarce many are recruited by their own family or neighbors unaware of the risks that await them [Music] despite the high number of myanmar migrants who end up in thailand's fisheries it is still not enough due to a global demand for low-cost seafood the industry suffers extreme labor shortages and many employers try to resolve this by turning to deception and coercion foreign once they're trapped in the middle of the ocean workers have no power to negotiate and no one to turn to for help [Music] in 2015 the thai government began using gps tracking systems to monitor vessels out at sea they also started inspecting fishing boats that doctor thai forts to check for compliance with the new rules the best instrument we have put in is the what they call hypo called import out where they inspect workers whether they have their rights like being looked after or not and all their contracts and so on we actually send vessels out into the sea and stop the vessel and look whether they're still complying [Music] thai law as it applies to fishing has gotten a lot better over the last few years but hard as that is really hard part is making them stick at the port level so acting out those those new rules in dozens of ports around the country and inevitably there are ways to work around the new rules so officials are often just left at port and they're reduced to reviewing documents and asking questions of skippers and crews to figure out what happened out there and that's inherently difficult pipo inspections have been criticized by groups like lpn and human rights watch they assert that superficial inspections mean that labor abuses are rarely identified the national fisheries association an alliance of thai boat and business owners claims trafficking of migrant workers has stopped and that the new rules are now too strict that the fish's rights network says that despite the inspections workers are still being exploited by captains and boat owners what we have seen is from the death bonded situation some of the officials are afraid they are scared to move to shame to another boat when they know that they are in depth they continue working with the boss that they might get abused [Music] the only way to have the officials to involve in the change in laws and policy is to have the representative of the fishers [Music] one of the biggest changes fishing workers hope to see is the ability to manage their own income there are still problems with pay fishers don't have complete control over their pay and that's important because control over pay is control over over work so one of the changes over the last few years was to require that fishers have a bank account and get paid electronically but some vessel owners have taken control of fisher's atm cards called atm one worker wanted to share his experience so he sent a video and photos to the production team he requested he stay anonymous foreign forest labor is still continuing under this condition they keep the document because they're not allowed the fishers to move do [Music] [Music] instead this is all he's received in payment it happened huh patama believes there are hundreds of formerly enslaved fishermen still stuck on certain indonesian islands [Music] has built up a network of contacts and volunteers to help her reach out to stranded workers on her last visit to the area she met dany a local who helped her with her search he has sent her information about a man from myanmar his name is aung and he's been stranded on an extremely remote island for almost 20 years he told danny he wants to contact his family in myanmar and find out if he could return home all she has to go on at the moment is a grainy photograph and two names in shaky handwriting a volunteer has offered to help track down ongnaing's family she's heard about a household where a man has been missing for more than 20 years the names are a match and the village is in the right area tinto is the brother of the missing man but it's been decades since they've seen each other he wants more information we call danny the man who sent the photo to lpn [Music] hello [Music] satisfied that it is really his brother tindor tries to explain to his dad that our nine has been found [Music] oh yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] oh it's been more than 20 years since they heard from him but it will be difficult as he doesn't have official documents like a birth certificate and life in myanmar for those who have returned is tough hundreds of migrants came back to myanmar when the crackdown happened but for most of them that was not the end of the story was trapped in a fishing boat for over four years [Music] when he returned home in 2015 he felt he was given a second chance at life but the reality proved to be tough not long after his return his father was diagnosed with cancer [Music] most of the returnees received little or no compensation for the years of unpaid work they did on the boats hangtin has been collecting contacts and information to help those who want to build the case but after many years of silence from authorities most believe they will never be paid is meeting some migrant workers who have been deported from thailand hey maya many of those deported are from the fishing industry [Music] [Laughter] foreign me [Applause] [Music] [Music] to further crack down on migrants crossing the border to work illegally thailand and myanmar recently signed a memorandum of understanding [Music] this mou provides myanmar workers to tie fisheries officially and legally if a worker's rights are violated they can go through a formal process for restitution but it's not been smooth sailing and timing under the mou contracts and paperwork are processed by official agencies creating the illusion of a safety net for workers unfortunately problems have been known to emerge after the contracts assigned foreign [Music] although thailand has made changes over the years complacency and corruption are threatening to undermine the achievements [Music] [Music] those who stand to lose money don't want to change their ways and now they're finding new means to navigate this notorious industry in uncharted waters when the extent of the slavery and abuses on fishing vessels was revealed thailand reacted by essentially banning overseas fishing if you're a fishing vessel that flies the thai flag you now have to be back in a thai port every 30 days so the the long haul long distance fishing is at least for now at an end but the world's appetite for low-cost seafood has not diminished and thailand is still one of its main suppliers the seafood industry is hungry for fish caught in deeper waters so they found a way around the problem thailand's laws don't have to be enforced to the same extent if the fishing boats are registered under another country when vessels go beyond thai waters or vessels that are flying a different flag come into a thai port it's hard to police them the thai government's authority over those vessels the foreign flag vessels is is less years of inconsistent regulation has made it impossible to track how some vessels have been traded over time it's legal for thai vessel to be so abroad and for workers who work if the owner really is the owner there's no law saying that you're a thai vessel you're always typical if there is actually no owner abroad but the owner here is the real owner then we have to prosecute but it's very difficult to do that we don't really even have a good list of how many thai ships have been sold around the largest and most notorious overseas fishing boats have mostly been seized or sunk but there are hundreds more unaccounted for some larger boats are now thought to be fishing near africa under country flags with almost no maritime regulations like mongolia other thai boats have been renamed and re-flagged in myanmar where there is much less scrutiny foreign [Music] the big fishing boats disguise themselves in order to avoid detection and when they are unregulated the workers are more at risk the captain of a transport vessel which supports these illegal boats agreed to speak to the production team anonymously [Music] leave it over here [Music] when his transport vessel collects the catch from the larger fishing boats he witnesses the terrible conditions that the workers have to live in he claims that the myanmar authorities do not do any checks first [Music] the thai government and the industry here has been under a lot of pressure over the last four or five years rightly so they had a terrible problem they've made some progress and it's now important that other industries in the neighborhood indonesia vietnam india that have uh problems that are similar not of the not exactly of the same nature the same severity but some of the same some of the same dynamics and problems be made to raise their game without clear inter-country legislation to govern the global fishing industry illegal activity on the ocean will continue to reach beyond borders in indonesia dany is preparing to visit ongnai a man from myanmar who escaped the fishing belt at sea he's been stranded for almost 20 years on an extremely isolated island called yamtel far from where dany lives the journey will take dany half a day couple [Music] foreign [Music] foreign um [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] danny has a phone number for aung night's family they decide to try and make a call but the area has no cellular reception hong 9 has to walk to the other side of the island in the hope of getting a signal [Music] [Music] [Music] ah [Music] um put [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] long night didn't want to talk about his experience on the fishing boat like many former fishermen he has suffered a lot in his life [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] foreign after returning to myanmar hong kong managed to get a job working for his family in a makeshift gold miner [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 78,516

Rating: 4.922039 out of 5

Keywords: Slavery, labour, trafficking, exploitation, Thailand, Indonesia, migrants, fishing, seafood, fishers, fishermen, stranded, boats, cna insider, cna insider documentaries, undercover asia

Id: vj0OPQh083g

Length: 47min 30sec (2850 seconds)

Published: Sun May 24 2020

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