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Published on Jul 30, 2015
In 2011, Asorasak Thamma was kidnapped in Thailand and enslaved on a fishing boat. Interviewed last year, he had not been home since.
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Published on Jul 30, 2015
In 2011, Asorasak Thamma was kidnapped in Thailand and enslaved on a fishing boat. Interviewed last year, he had not been home since.
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EU eyes ban on Thai seafood industry
SIMON MARKS
October 19, 2015
Silver Sea 2, a Thai-owned cargo ship that was seized by Indonesian authorities last August, is docked at the port of Sabang, Aceh Province, Indonesia.
BRUSSELS -- The fishing industry of Thailand, the world's third largest exporter of seafood, could be facing annual losses of up to 650 million euros ($740 million) if the European Commission decides to impose a trade ban by the end of this year.
The EU has long considered blocking all fish imports from Thailand as it investigates illegal fishing practices and allegations of slave labor in Thailand's gigantic fleet of 45,000 fishing vessels.
A total ban would not only cost the country hundreds of millions of euros in annual exports to the EU, but potentially a lot more if it damages Thailand's reputation as one of the world's major tourism destinations.
According to EU officials who spoke to the Nikkei Asian Review on condition of anonymity, experts from the Commission's Directorate General of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries as well as the European External Action Service, the EU's foreign service, are visiting Thailand to investigate whether the country is still engaging in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities.
Sensitive moment
The probe comes at a sensitive time for Bangkok, whose military government is already being criticized for human rights violations, including arbitrary detention and suppression of freedom of assembly and free speech. The EU focus comes just half a year after Brussels issued a so-called "yellow card" on fisheries practices to Thailand, giving the junta six months to bring the seafood industry in line with international standards.
The current visit is designed to establish whether those conditions have been met.
Making matters more complicated for Bangkok is a growing sense of frustration in European capitals regarding the country's attitude toward human rights and worries about the restoration of democracy.
"Thailand has to return to a civilian democratic government as soon as possible and there needs to be a timeframe that is genuinely observed for the holding of elections," said Barbara Lochbihler, a Green Party lawmaker from Germany, during a European Parliament hearing on Thailand in Strasbourg on Oct. 8.
"There needs to be an effort to combat illegal fishing operations. Many people are kept on boats in circumstances close to slavery. Many of them are not allowed to leave the ship and work for years without wages," she explained, echoing comments from several other European members of parliament from across the political spectrum.
While a trade ban, known as a "red-card action," would only reflect illegal fishing activities, officials in Brussels say they are also are considering related matters such as working conditions, human trafficking and slavery. European governments have been disappointed that the Thai military junta never held national elections in October 2014 as promised and this could also determine the outcome. EU officials said the current investigation will be extremely rigorous. Thailand has appointed its ambassador to the United Nations, Virachai Plasai, as its new head negotiator on the issue, but it remains unclear whether enough action has been taken on the ground for the country to avoid a ban.
"If all they have done is make speeches or pay lip service, we don't take that into account. We must have evidence that they have taken concrete steps," said one senior EU fisheries official. "The policy is one of zero tolerance."
The Commission will decide in December whether to impose a total ban or else give Thailand another six to 12 months to completely comply with international standards.
The EU fisheries official said, "It has to be substantial progress" for Thailand to avoid a total ban.
Human trafficking
The EU is studying the prevalence of trafficked men on Thai fishing vessels from Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar, where tens of thousands of Muslim Rohingya have fled ethnic persecution.
Following the last EU mission in 2014, Thailand rapidly adopted a revised fisheries act to replace a 1947 act. However, the EU deemed the revised text as inadequate in both content and scope and said it did not address the complexities of the fisheries and processing industries in Thailand.
"The legal framework does not target serious infringements with deterrent sanctions depriving offenders of the economic benefits derived from the illicit activity and, therefore, it does not dissuade illegal fishing," one EU official said.
In order to gain a positive EU assessment, Thailand must prove it has efficient surveillance systems on its entire fleet of vessels.
Satellite Vessel Monitoring Systems are still only deployed on fewer than 100 out of the 45,000 fishing vessels, of which more than 7,000 are commercial vessels. Thousands more are thought to be unregistered, according to the Commission.
In addition, traceability systems are failing to ensure that fishery products exported to the EU are compliant with the requirements of the EU's rules on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, which set industry standards.
"This is in part due to the weak cooperation between the different Thai administrations dealing with control at ports," an EU official said.
Whether Thailand has made any attempt to solve these issues will emerge in the coming months. Human rights workers in Thailand said they have heard anecdotal evidence that Bangkok has made some effort to comply in recent months in large part due to fears that a ban would have dramatic repercussions on other areas of the economy such as the tourism industry.
Andy Hall, international affairs adviser to the Migrant Worker Rights Network in Bangkok, said he had heard that Thailand is making efforts to improve labor rights in the fishing industry.
"But whether they will be enforced and there will be long term impacts remains very unclear," he said. "It's too early days and [they're] starting from a very poor position."
He added that Thailand needs to install a reliable auditing system "to get at what the real conditions are like on boats."
asia.nikkei.comComment
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ILO seeks to raise attention on slavery
Zoe Holman
Fri, 23 October 2015
Fishermen that were saved from slave-like working conditions sit on a bus at Phnom Penh International Airport in June after being repatriated from Malaysia.
Heng ChivoanComment
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A Dozen Trafficked Migrants Freed From Thai Fishing Boat
KYAW KHA
Translated by Thet Ko Ko.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Trafficked migrants and members of MAT after a rescue operation in Thailand this week.
(Photo: Myanmar Association in Thailand)
RANGOONComment
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26/10/2015
Fastfood chain McDonald's Thai franchise has quickly denied a message spreading on social media suggesting that the company is boycotting fish from Thailand over the use of "slave labor" in the industry.
An image circulating online using the McDonald's logo and suggesting the fast food chain is boycotting Thai fish.parody website allowed people the use of logos of fastfood chains to create images carrying a particular message.
In a post on its official Facebook page, McThai said its fish burger is made from 100% Alaska Pollock, a member of the cod family, wild-caught in the northern Pacific Ocean and most abundant in the Bering Sea.
It said McDonald's Thailand imported Alaska Pollock from the US and that the story and image shared on social media referring to slave labour and claiming the company was boycotting Thai fish was misleading.
bangkokpost.comComment
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Thailand holds 8,000 fishing trawlers in port over non registration
27 October 2015
Thailand holds 8,000 fishing trawlers in port
Bangkok (dpa) - Thailand on Tuesday revoked the commercial fishing licences of 8,024 fishing trawlers for failing to join a new registration scheme, the navy said.
The government in July ordered all fishing vessels to register as part of a response to an EU warning over illegal fishing.
The European Union in January threatened an import ban on Thai fisheries products unless the country did more to crack down on illegal fishing practices including ocean bottom trawling and the use of push nets.
Those practices were already banned under Thai fishing regulations, but implementation was lax, and to be improved by the new registration scheme.
The ship owners affected by Tuesday's move have "no channel to recover their licences and their vessels will remain in harbour" for the time being, Navy spokesman Benjamaporn Wongnakornsawangthat said.
"Over 42,000 other vessels have registered and they will be allowed to continue fishing."
The banned vessels range in size from small two-man fishing boats to 600-ton commercial ships.
dpa-international.comComment
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UK firms must show proof they have no links to slave labour under new rules
Amelia Gentleman
Thursday 29 October 2015
Legislation requiring large companies to publish evidence online is designed to force them to take responsibility for working conditions in supply chains
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Photograph: Matthew Chattle/Rex Shutterstock
sourced prawns from a Thailand-based companySlaveryInternational Labour Organisation estimates that almost 21 million people are currently working in some form of forced labourdomestic labourModern Slavery Actthroughout the supply chainComment
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Three skippers among trafficking suspects netted in Trang
Methee Muangkaew, Achadtaya Chuenniran and Wassana Nanuam
7/11/2015
The chairman of the Trang Fishing Association and eight others were arrested on human trafficking charges and three boats seized in predawn raids on land and at sea on Saturday.
Police arrested Sompol Jirotemontree, who also operates the Poka Sathaporn fish market business, and five others in Kantang district in the southern province at 4am. Three skippers were captured on the Andaman Sea about one hour later.
All of those arrested were the subjects of warrants issued earlier by the provincial court before authorities launched one of the largest operations yet to clamp down on human traffickers in Trang.
Police raided 11 targets in the district and captured Mr Sompol at his market, while five others, one of them the skipper of Poka Sathaporn 6 trawler, were arrested at their houses, also in Kantang.
Meanwhile, a 10-hour sea operation involving HTMS Klaeng from Phangnga province and marine police vessel 809 from Satun set off at 7pm on Thursday with officials from the Department of Special Investigation on board to find three fishing boats suspected of employing forced labourers from Myanmar.
Sompol Jirotemontree, chairman of the Trang Fishing Association, operates the Poka Sathaporn fish market in the province.
(Photo by Methee Muangkaew)
They tracked the Wanich Pramong, Poka Sathaporn 19 and Poka Sathaporn 34 using the vessel monitoring system with ground support from the Royal Thai Navy radar station and finally found the trawlers in three separate locations, all about 60 nautical miles from Koh Libong in Kantang, at 5am Friday.
Authorities arrested the skippers of the three ships - Prawit Kimsai, Thaworn Chantharak and Khammee Pradasuk - and brought them back to shore in the district to hand them over to police.
Plans to crack down on human trafficking in the province were mapped out following the rescue on Oct 18 of forced labourers from Myanmar working on fishing boats, said Weerapong Chuenpakdi, commander of the Provincial Police Region 9.
Officials of the provincial office of the Labour, Social Development and Human Security Ministry, together with the EGF Foundation, questioned the workers before sending them to the police to provide further details to target the suspects, other officials said.
Investigators subsequently collected enough evidence for the court to approve the warrants, Pol Maj Gen Weerapong said at a news conference on Saturday in Trang.
Vice Adm Sayan Prasongsamret, commander of the navy's Third Region, said the arrests were part of the government's campaign to crack down on human trafficking at sea and illegal fishing.
Thailand has been yellow-carded by the European Union, which has been pressing the country to deal with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing or face a seafood import ban. The United States has also been pressing the country to urgently address human trafficking and slavery in the fishery.
The cabinet this week approved a series of measures intended to tackle IUU fishing and manage marine resources in hopes that they would meet EU expectations.
A prominent businessman in the fishing industry in Trang, Mr Sompol was quoted on the Public Relations Department news website on May 11 as urging all trawler operators to end the use of illegal crew members and forced labour, so that Thailand could avoid sanctions.
bangkokpost.comComment
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Almost 100 Migrant Workers Rescued From Forced Labour Near Bangkok
SAMUT SAKHON (Thailand), Nov 9 (Bernama) -- Thai authorities have rescued nearly 100 migrant workers, including children, from allegedly-forced labour at a processed seafood factory in Mahachai area of Samut Sakhon Province near Bangkok, reports Thai News Agency (TNA).
The joint operation by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), the Royal Thai Navy, the Royal Thai Police and provincial authorities, was conducted on Monday following a complaint from a male Myanmar worker who escaped from the processed seafood factory.
DSI earlier found that migrant workers, including children, were forced to work there for 16 hours a day, from 2am to 6pm, earning wages of about 1,000 baht (about RM122) every ten days, but the sum was deducted for their job brokerage fees.
The raid found 91 migrant workers, 33 of them had no documents and 41 had their documents seized by employers.
According to TNA local police were collecting profiles of possible victims of human trafficking and would take legal action against their employers.
bernama.comComment
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Thai police arrest agent, say he misled fishing-boat workers
Nov 10
BANGKOK (AP) -- Thai police on Tuesday announced the arrest of a man they said tricked more than 100 men into working for low pay on illegal fishing boats in Indonesia, part of the government's effort to show that it is cracking down on an industry that has been rife with human trafficking and labor abuses.
Police Col. Panop Worathanatchakul said Surat Seangsri supplied Thai workers to several illegal fishing boats over the years. Panop said he was part of a network of human traffickers that the Thai government is determined to break up.
Police said in a press release that victims returning from Indonesia implicated Surat as an agent, saying he told workers they would receive good payments and legal working status. They said the employers paid salaries in advance, but that Surat took the money for his agent fees and expenses while the fishermen received a fraction of what they had expected.
Surat, 46, was arrested Monday and faces charges including human trafficking, conspiracy and assisting in smuggling trafficked victims in and out of the country. Panop said Surat denies the allegations.
Thailand is under international pressure to cut down on unregulated fishing and human trafficking in fishing and other industries. The European Union is expected to rule by the end of the year on whether to impose a seafood import ban on Thailand over illegal and unregulated fishing, and the Southeast Asian country is on a U.S. blacklist over human trafficking.
Also on Monday, Thai police raided a shrimp peeling shed southwest of Bangkok and found around 100 workers from Myanmar.
Authorities were alerted to allegations of human trafficking by a worker who escaped. He said dozens of those inside were victims of debt bondage and had been barred from leaving the facility.
A year-long investigation by The Associated Press revealed that Thai boats were fishing illegally in Indonesian waters with largely slave labor, with fishermen kept at sea for months at a time and sometimes held in a cage when the boats docked at a remote island. The fish they caught tainted the supply chains of many U.S. companies, including including Wal-Mart, Sysco and Kroger.
Authorities in Asia have responded to the criticism by shutting down a multimillion-dollar Thai-Indonesian fishing business, arresting at least 11 people, including Surat, and seizing two fishing cargo vessels. In the U.S., importers have demanded change, three class-action lawsuits are underway, new laws have been introduced and the Obama administration is pushing exporters to clean up their labor practices.
ap.orgComment
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Originally posted by Mid View Post
Indonesia opens trials of 8 accused of enslaving fishermen
Nov 16
TUAL, Indonesia (AP) -- An Indonesian court has opened the trials of three Indonesians and five Thais charged with human trafficking connected with slavery in the seafood industry.
The suspects were arrested in the remote island village of Benjina in May after the slavery was revealed by The Associated Press in a report two months earlier.
The defendants were being tried separately Monday in Tual, a municipality in southeastern Maluku province, about 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) southeast of Jakarta.
Youngyut Nitiwongchaeron, a 53-year-old Thai captain, was the first to go on trial.
The three Indonesian and five Thai boat captains are employees at Pusaka Benjina Resources, one of the largest fishing firms in eastern Indonesia.
If found guilty they could face jail sentences of up to 15 years and fines as high as $46,000.
ap.orgComment
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Ministry of Agriculture & Cooperatives of Thailand: Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
Thought leader: Ministry of Agriculture & Cooperatives of Thailand: Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
Chatchai Sarikalya
8 September 2015
Thailand is making progress in its fight against illegal fishing, but change takes time, says Chatchai Sarikalya.
theparliamentmagazine.euComment
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Rampant abuse of workers in Thai seafood trade: Report
11 hours ago
ST_20151125_SESEAFOOD_1863719.jpg
Migrant workers from Myanmar at a processing plant in Ranong, Thailand. Most of Thailand's seafood workers are from Cambodia or Myanmar, and were taken into Thailand illegally by traffickers.
PHOTO: NEW YORK TIMES
Many are victims of slave trade, made to work long hours with limited medical care, it says
WORKED TO DEATH
Sometimes, the net is too heavy, and workers get pulled into the water and just disappear. When someone dies, he gets thrown into the water.
A WORKER FROM MYANMAR, on conditions on the fishing boats
"Sometimes, the net is too heavy, and workers get pulled into the water and just disappear," said a worker from Myanmar, according to the report. "When someone dies, he gets thrown into the water."
Workers sometimes went a year before receiving any wages, and some faced physical and verbal abuse if they did not meet production quotas, the report said.
The mistreatment was cited by the United States in its annual report on human trafficking, in which Thailand fell to the lowest level, as well as in lawsuits filed by consumers in the US accusing firms of selling seafood caught using slave labour.
The European Union threatened earlier this year to ban Thai seafood imports if the country fails to improve the regulation of its fishing industry.
The report called for workers on fishing boats to be provided written contracts and for the industry to impose a "no fees to workers" rule that prohibits passing on the costs of a job to a worker.
In addition to the report, Nestle also released its own action plan that it hopes will help stamp out abuses in its supply chain. The plan includes setting up channels through which workers can air grievances, training for boat captains and owners, and establishing better methods of tracing raw materials and verifying labour standards.
Next year, Nestle said, it would announce new requirements for all potential suppliers as well as details of a plan for hiring auditors to check for compliance with new rules.
Work on the report started in December last year and was conducted by the non-profit organisation Verite, which interviewed more than 100 people in Thailand, including deckhands, boat owners and shrimp farmers.
"The report is a step in the right direction," said Mr Steve Berman, managing partner of US law firm Hagens Berman, which in August filed a class-action lawsuit against Nestle, alleging its Fancy Feast cat food brand was the product of forced labour.
"But our litigation will go forward because Nestle Purina still fails to disclose on its products, as is required by law, that slave labour was used in its making."
The Thai Ambassador to the US, Mr Pisan Manawapat, said his government took these problems seriously. Nestle's report was conducted largely before the Thai government took several recent major actions, he added.
Mr Pisan cited, for example, increased prosecutions of traffickers in recent months, and new rules imposed this month that required tracking devices on all Thai fishing boats larger than 30 tonnes.
The new rules also mandated independent observers on most Thai fishing boats in foreign waters, and imposed stepped-up fines for boat operators caught using undocumented migrant workers.
straitstimes.comComment
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