Practices ‘victimise trafficked fishers’
GREENPEACE has called for a permanent end to the dangerous practice of “transshipping”, which contributed to fatal cases of beriberi on a Thai fishing vessel crewed by trafficked Cambodian men earlier this year.
Based on a 12-month investigation and released last Thursday, Greenpeace’s Turn the Tide report found that “tainted fish” caught by victims of forced labour had entered into global supply chains and that vessels were intentionally shifting to more remote waters to avoid regulation.
Interviews with six Cambodian crew members from the Sor Somboon 19, which had been at sea continuously for nine months, revealed that “of a total crew of 30, all had contracted beriberi with five fatalities resulting from the disease”.
The survivors explained that supplies of meat and vegetables would be transshipped to their boat off of the Saya de Malha Bank, a remote underwater ridge, by refrigerated shipping containers every three months. However, the supplies would dwindle within 20 days, leaving them a diet of white rice and fish, causing a deficiency in Vitamin B1.
“An official [Thai] Government investigation … concluded that the men had died of heart failure – at its root caused by poor nutrition, overwork and long periods without return to port, enabled by transshipping at sea,” the report read.
Using April interviews with 15 Cambodians rescued from CONTINUED
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