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  • Fisherman 'enslaved for five years on Thai fishing boat because of an unpaid beer tab'
    Ruth Halkon
    19 May 2016

    The man collapsed drunk and four days later discovered himself in the home of the broker where he was told he owed 2,000 baht ($50) for the beer and his stay


    A police officer climbs on a fishing boat during an inspection at the pier of Songkhla, south Thailand December 23, 2015.
    Reuters

    A man who collapsed drunk while having a drink with his friend was told he would have to work as a fisherman to pay the cost of his beer, a court heard.

    The man from Myanmar says he was forced to spend five years working for free after he came into the clutches of a broker in the fishing port town of Kantang in southern Thailand.

    Four days after the man collapsed, he said he discovered himself in the home of the broker where he was told he owed 2,000 baht ($50) for the beer and his stay.

    He ended up enslaved on a fishing boat and was only rescued when he and the other alleged 'slaves' called a helpline and asked to be saved.


    Marine policemen inspect papers of migrant workers after the fishing boat arrives at a port in Mahachai
    Reuters

    Nine defendants are now on trial at a court in Thailand's southern Trang province as the proceedings began last week in a human trafficking case against nine defendants.

    The defendants include the broker, as well as the owner of Boonlarp Fishing Co. Ltd., whom prosecutors say is the chief of the trafficking ring.

    The man and his fellow 'slaves' only escaped when Papop Siamhan, a lawyer for the trafficking victims and project coordinator for the Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF) rights group said he defendants have denied all charges.

    He added: "This case is important because before the police could only catch the small fish, but this is the first time they got the big fish."

    Thailand has come under fire after numerous reports uncovered slavery and human trafficking in its multibillion-dollar seafood industry.

    The government recently amended its laws in an effort to combat human trafficking and slavery, ratcheting up penalties to life imprisonment and the death penalty in cases where their victims had died.


    Cops stand guard
    Reuters

    The Issara Institute, a Bangkok-based anti-trafficking organisation, has been a key point of contact for these trafficked fishermen and said reports of abuses on fishing boats operating out of Kantang began as early as 2008.

    Fishermen from Myanmar on boats run by Boonlarp began calling Issara Institute's 24-hour hotline to complain of being exploited and physically abused in May 2015.

    Threats against the fishermen escalated, until on October 14, 2015, one fishermen phoned the hotline and said a captain had threatened to behead him and throw his body overboard.

    He pleaded with the hotline operator: "I do not want to die young. Please help us!", according to the Issara Institute.

    Soon after, Thai authorities from several agencies, working with the Issara Institute, went out to sea and rescued men from the Boonlarp boats.

    Last Friday, the Kantang case kicked off the first of 42 court hearings scheduled over five months, but the plaintiffs' lawyers filed a motion at the second hearing on Thursday to move the case to a court in Bangkok.

    "We wanted to move the case because we are worried about the safety of the victims," said Preeda Tongchumnum, another lawyer on the case, who works with the Solidarity Center, a U.S.-based worker rights organisation.

    She added: "They have faced abuse by the broker and her husband, so they are scared, Even though they're under the care of state authorities, if they come to Bangkok, they would feel safer.

    Proceedings have been adjourned until July 26, when the Supreme Court's decision on the motion to move the case will be read.

    mirror.co.uk
    http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

    Comment


    • Thailand says EU has not taken any decision on fishing ban
      (Reporting by Pracha Hariraksapitak in BANGKOK and Julia Fioretti in BRUSSELS; Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Louise Ireland and Gareth Jones)
      Mon May 23, 2016


      Vendors sort fish and other seafood at a market in Bangkok, Thailand, March 31, 2016. Picture taken March 31, 2016.
      Reuters/Athit Perawongmetha

      The EU has not taken any decision on whether to ban fish exports from Thailand, the Thai foreign ministry said on Monday, clarifying comments made by its deputy prime minister that Bangkok had been given more time to end illegal fishing.

      Earlier Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan had said the European Union had given Thailand, the world's third-largest seafood exporter, a further six months to curb illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, more than a year after Brussels threatened Bangkok with a ban.

      The ministry said in a statement that Prawit had "merely stated" the EU had not reached a decision on whether to give Thailand a "red card", effectively banning its fish exports.

      "Thus Thailand still has time to work on this matter before such a decision will be made and Thailand reaffirms its commitment to continue working to tackle the problem," it said.

      Thailand's fishing industry employs more than 300,000 people, many of them migrant workers from neighboring countries who are often subject to ill-treatment.

      The industry's reputation has been tarnished by instances of human trafficking to meet manpower demand, forced labor and violence.

      The EU gave Thailand a "yellow card" - or warning - in April 2015 for failing to prevent illegal and unregulated fishing catch entering the supply chain and ending up in seafood exports to Europe. The warning required Thailand to clean up in six months or face a trade ban.

      A spokesman for the European Commission confirmed that no formal decision had yet been taken and said the next round of talks would take place in Bangkok in July.

      A Thai team visited Brussels last week to discuss progress. Since receiving the EU warning, Thailand has instigated new license and monitoring systems for fishing vessels, the director general of the Thai Fisheries Department, Adisorn Promthep, told Reuters last week in Brussels.

      Bangkok has also tightened regulations and imposed limitations on the catch, Adisorn said.

      The EU yellow card had been a "wakeup call" to deal with an obsolete fisheries law, he added.

      Authorities were also making more regular checks on vessels and demanded employers give workers written contracts, he said. That was to prevent labor abuses and human traffickers selling people on to boats, Adisorn said.

      reuters.com
      http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

      Comment



      • May 26, 2016


        Moves to combat illegal fishing appear to be a ruse
        http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

        Comment


        • EU maintains close watch on #Thailand for signs of progress on fishing and democracy
          Martin Banks
          May 30, 2016



          Thailand has been put on formal notice that it faces a potentially crippling exports ban unless further action is taken to tackle fishing irregularities,
          writes Martin Banks.
          http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

          Comment


          • EU warns Thailand over illegal fishing
            Matthew Tempest


            General Prayut Chan-o-cha
            [Wikimedia]

            http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

            Comment



            • Friday, 17 June 2016


              Migrant fishermen from Myanmar on a Thai fishing boat arriving at a jetty in Samut Sakhon province, Thailand, 11 March 2016.
              Photo: Diego Azubel/EPA


              Thailand's fisheries director said Thursday his department needs more time to clean up the kingdom's scandal-mired seafood sector and avoid a looming European threat to ban its fish products.

              The kingdom is the world's third largest seafood exporter, a status that rights groups say is achieved through illegal overfishing and a reliance on low-paid trafficked workers from neighbouring countries.

              But the sector has fallen under intense pressure to overhaul the lucrative and largely unregulated industry.

              Last year the European Union threatened to ban all Thai seafood products unless the military government tackled rampant illegal fishing among its fleets.

              EU officials affirmed last week that the boycott is still on the table and called on Thailand to present "robust measures" of improvement in Bangkok talks next month.

              But the director of the kingdom's fishing department, AdisornPromthep, told AFP Thursday more time is needed to restructure a sector that has long operated as a free-for-all.

              "Right now what I need is more time," he said, stressing that key legislation has been passed but efficient law enforcement remains a challenge.

              "Not everything is functioning at 100 percent yet," he said.

              A ban on seafood exports could cost Thailand up to $1 billion a year at a time when the current junta is struggling to revive the economy.

              Thanks to a new vessel monitoring system, fisheries staff are now able to track the movements of some 7,000 vessels from their Bangkok control room equipped with wall-to-wall screens.

              "When they cross into neighbouring countries' (territory) we get an alert," said PholphisinSuvanachai, the director of the department's technology centre.

              His staff then notify any stray ships -- around three or four per day -- by phone or text message.

              But more stringent regulations that would set quotas for the catch of specific species remain a long way off, said Adisorn.

              "We need more scientific data. We don't know what we're going to do next," he told AFP.

              He said previous efforts to address the industry's ills were stymied by frequent changes in Thailand's government, which led to a backlog in the bills put before successive parliaments.

              The politically tumultuous country has seen democratically elected governments toppled by two military coups in the past 10 years, a period analysts refer to as the "lost decade".

              But the threat of a costly EU ban has spurred the military government into action, with the ruling junta desperate to avoid any further hits to the kingdom's slumping economy.

              "The yellow card was like an alarm bell ringing," said Adisorn.

              The kingdom's fishing industry has also been battered in recent years by allegations of fleets staffed by trafficked slave and child labour from neighbouring countries.

              mizzima.com
              http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

              Comment


              • U.S. lawsuit against seafood importers makes claims of human trafficking
                Sebastien Malo
                Thu Jun 16, 2016

                NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Rural Cambodian villagers have filed a lawsuit against four U.S. and Thai companies, accusing them of trafficking and making them work in forced-labor conditions in a Thai seafood factory.

                Their civil complaint filed in California federal court accuses the four companies in a joint venture of violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a U.S. law that aims to prevent human trafficking.

                Retailing giant Walmart purchases shrimp and other seafood from the companies, two of which have U.S. offices, according to the complaint.

                Thailand's reputation has suffered in recent years after numerous investigations by news organizations and rights groups into human trafficking, slavery and violence in its multi-billion dollar seafood industry.

                It has vowed to crack down on human trafficking and slavery and recently introduced reforms to its fisheries law.

                The five men and two women filing suit in a Los Angeles court claim that after they left their homeland for Thailand, factory managers confiscated their passports and made them work up to six days a week for wages that were less than promised.

                Some "were reduced to eating seafood they found washed up on the beach," the complaint said.

                They were not allowed to retrieve their passports to leave and return home, it said.

                "What happened to me was wrong," said Keo Ratha in a statement accompanying the lawsuit. "I filed this suit so companies would think twice before exploiting trafficked workers in the future."

                The complaint claims the Cambodian workers were victims of involuntary and debt servitude, forced labor and human trafficking in 2010 and 2011.

                The named companies include Rubicon Resources, incorporated in Delaware with an office in Culver City, California, and Wales & Co. Universe Ltd., incorporated in Thailand but registered to conduct business in California, the complaint said.

                The two Thai companies are Phatthana Seafood and S.S. Frozen Food. No lawyers were listed in court documents for the defendants.

                Walmart did not respond immediately to a request for comment, Rubicon Resources did not answer an email and telephone calls and Wales & Co. Universe could not be reached.

                The workers are seeking an unspecified amount of money for unpaid wages, mental anguish, pain and suffering in the suit, filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

                "These are lovely, hard-working and decent people who really deserve better," their lead attorney Agnieszka Fryszman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

                Nearly 21 million people globally are victims of forced labor, an industry that generates $150 billion a year in illegal profits, according to the United Nation's International Labour Organization (ILO).

                reuters.com
                http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

                Comment


                • A Lao Deckhand Sends His Wife an SOS, then Disappears from a Thai Fishing Boat
                  Reported by RFA's Lao Service.
                  Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh.
                  Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
                  2016-06-21


                  Migrant workers on a fishing boat in Mahachai, on the outskirts of Bangkok, June 30, 2015.
                  AFP An investigation
                  Unusual moves
                  http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

                  Comment


                  • 3 more migrants rescued from fishing boat slavery
                    NANG MYA NADI / DVB
                    30 June 2016



                    The three migrants (centre) pose for a photo with MAT staff after their ordeal.
                    (PHOTO: MAT) enslaved on the shipDVBfishing firmthe group rescued three other migrants from a fishing boatDVB that they wished to take their chances and try to make a living in Thailand as legal migrants.

                    dvb.no
                    http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Mid View Post
                      At Least 30 Trafficking Victims Rescued In Phuket
                      KHIN OO THA
                      Translation by Thet Ko Ko.
                      Friday, January 29, 2016

                      snip

                      In July, The Irrawaddy reported on a raid of a Bangkok shrimp peeling factory which freed more than 60 Burmese nationals being held captive by another Burmese employment broker who had trafficked them.

                      snip

                      irrawaddy.com
                      Shrimp Slaves Still Waiting For Justice After Thai Raid
                      Margie Mason
                      July 2, 2016

                      Burmese former shrimp shed worker Tin Nyo Win, right, sits with his wife, Mi San, during a June 24 interview in Patum Thani north of Bangkok.
                      Photo: Margie Mason / Associated Press

                      PATHUM THANIBurmese shrimp shed worker Tin Nyo Win, left, and his wife, Mi San, stand in a jail cell after they were arrested Nov. 13 in Samut Sakhon.
                      Photo: Robin McDowell / Associated Press
                      http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

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                      • Originally posted by Mid View Post


                        Lawsuit accuses Thai Union of selling US consumers seafood from supply chain using slave labor

                        Tom Seaman
                        September 30, 2015


                        A lawsuit filed in California on Sept. 25 accuses Thai Union Group and its US subsidiaries of selling products to consumers from a supply chain that contains slave labor.

                        snip

                        undercurrentnews.com
                        Originally posted by Mid View Post


                        Thai Union to bring all shrimp processing in-house by year end

                        Neil Ramsden
                        December 10, 2015


                        A Thai shrimp peeling shed.
                        Credit: Environmental Justice Foundation

                        Thai Union Group has announced its intention to have cut external pre-processors, or peeling sheds, from its supply chain by the end of 2015.

                        snip

                        undercurrentnews.com
                        Originally posted by Mid View Post


                        Thai Union seafood allegedly connected to forced and child labour - Greenpeace statement


                        Washington, DC, 14 December 2015 - An Associated Press investigation released today found that Thai Union, owner of Chicken of the Sea in the U.S., has again been connected to forced labour and horrific working conditions in Thailand. The investigation, which took place last month, followed trucks transporting shrimp from the Gig Peeling Factory to major Thai exporting companies, and then tracked where the product ended up globally.

                        snip

                        greenpeace.org

                        Thai Union gets fresh crack at North America with Chez Nous purchase
                        KENTARO IWAMOTO
                        July 5, 2016

                        BANGKOK -- Thai Union Group, the world's largest producer of canned tuna, announced Tuesday it will acquire a majority stake in Canadian lobster processor Les Pecheries de Chez Nous.

                        With antitrust issues forcing Thai Union to scrap its planned acquisition of Bumble Bee Seafood of the U.S. last December, the new deal offers the seafood giant a fresh avenue for expanding in the North American market.

                        A Thai Union official told the Nikkei Asian Review that the company could not disclose the purchase price until August, when the transaction is scheduled.

                        Thai Union will acquire processing facilities and other assets from the existing owner, who also serves as CEO of the Canadian company.

                        It will fund the purchase using internal reserves.

                        Earlier this year, Thai company said it aims to boost sales by $1.4 billion by 2020 through acquisitions.

                        According to Thai Union, annual sales at Chez Nous in 2015 totaled about 50 million Canadian dollars ($38 million).

                        North America is the Thai company's largest revenue source, accounting for more than 40% of the total.

                        "By acquiring Chez Nous, Thai Union secures an even stronger integration footprint in the North Atlantic lobster category," the company said in a press release.

                        asia.nikkei.com
                        http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

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                        • Trafficked Burmese Fishermen Rescued in Southern Thailand
                          MOE MYINT
                          Monday, July 11, 2016 |


                          Trafficked Burmese fishermen disembark the boat on which they were detained off Pattani, southern Thailand, on Sunday.
                          (Photo: Myanmar Association in Thailand)

                          RANGOON
                          http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

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                          • Thai Government Totally Bans IUU Fishing Vessels

                            BANGKOK, Sept 15 (Bernama) -- Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-ocha, in his capacity as Chief of the army-led National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), has exercised his special power under the Article 44 of the country's Provisional Constitution to totally ban fishing vessels found with the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing with its immediate effect.

                            Thai News Agency (TNA) reports that Thai Permanent Secretary for Agriculture and Cooperatives Teerapat Prayoonsitthi on Wednesday said this after meeting with his ministry's executives.

                            Teerapat said that the Thai prime minister also authorized his ministry's Department of Fisheries and the Marine Department, under the Ministry of Transport, to impose fines against those failing to comply with the order.

                            Article 44 legitimises the special power of the Thai prime minister and the NCPO chief by giving him free rein to issue any order for the sake of national security, reforms or unity without any normal legislative, executive or judicial procedures.

                            bernama.com
                            http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

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                            • Promises unmet as Thailand tries to reform shrimp industry
                              MARTHA MENDOZA
                              AP writers Esther Htusan in Yangon, Myanmar, and Natnicha Chuwiruch, Jason Corben and Tassanee Vejpongsa in Bangkok contributed to this report
                              September 21, 2016



                              (AP Photo/Margie Mason, File)

                              SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand (AP)
                              http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

                              Comment


                              • EJF meets with Thai deputy PM to urge commitment to reforms
                                October 19, 2016


                                A Thai shrimp peeling shed.
                                Credit: Environmental Justice Foundation
                                http://thailandchatter.com/showthrea...ll=1#post45112

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