Practices victimise trafficked fishers
another Thai fishing ship, the report details how the men were deceived into debt bondage.
“For the men working aboard these Saya de Malha Bank gillnetters, the fact that they were catching high-value commercial species had very little impact on their conditions of work, which resembled trafficking for forced labour situations typical of the Thai fishing industry,” the report read.
The report comes at the same time as a study on exploitation, violence and health risks faced by men and boys who had been trafficked, the majority of them Cambodian fisherman, authored by Nicola Pocock, a PhD candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Pocock’s study surveyed 446 males aged 10 to 58 in the Mekong sub-region, more than 60 percent of whom were trafficked for fishing, with about 20 percent forced to work in factories.
Almost 80 percent of trafficked fishermen were Cambodian, and well over a third spent more than two years trapped in their trafficking situation, where they worked an average of almost 19 hours a day.
More than half of the fishermen experienced severe violence – which included being kicked, beaten, chained, choked or burned, having a dog released to bite or scratch, being threatened with a weapon or shot and being forced to have sex. Only one in 10 factory workers reported similar abuse, Pocock said.
Six fisherman lost limbs and received no medical attention.
“While fishing is an industry with substantial risk of injury, the trafficking survivors in our sample appear to have higher injury rates than a population of fishermen surveyed in Thai ports,” the report read.
“Some of our findings contradict our original hypotheses. Men who received their wages had greater odds of injury; having documents does not appear to be protective for injuries or violence.”
For Pocock, the findings speak to wider problems across ASEAN about how migrant workers are viewed.
“It’s like employers can get away with anything, including murder, on these boats. What needs addressing is attitudes towards migrants, viewing them with dignity and respect,” she said via email yesterday.
Referencing the Greenpeace report, Pocock said beriberi was “a vitamin B1 deficiency that we only see in the most marginalised populations in modern day times” and added that transshipment was “effectively creating floating prisons, as some [ships] don’t dock for months”.
Moeun Tola, executive director of labour rights NGO Central, said the lack of oppor- tunity in Cambodia pushed people into seeking work abroad, making them vulnerable to trafficking.
“The fishing industry is the source of most concern for us . . . when the boat moves into the sea, it is completely isolated from the world, so there is no proper inspection or access to health care,” he said.
“I feel the way the government is sending people to Thailand or Malaysia, it’s just a way of dumping people over there,” he said, adding the memoranda of understanding with those countries were “very vague” and did not legally bind them to enforce standards and prevent exploitation.
“The government should have a clear mechanism to monitor the condition of the people,” he said.
Labour Ministry spokesman Heng Sour did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.