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So the nanny states are actually having an effect on the internal culture of Thailand. Personally I wonder if the Thai Aviation Industry cannot keep log books correctly, what hope is there for the 100's of Fishing boats that leave ports all around Thailand each day?
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Much, much greater than that, more likely a snowball in hell's chance.
Can't see where the ''nanny states'' are having an effect on Thailand's ''internal culture'' though.
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^^Not as if there is any real incentive. Obviously the moral question, is a non-starter, so pleading for more time? Surely not to fix the problem. Maybe to find a new market with less demanding ethics? Do the Chinese need more sea food?Comment
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So what are your own ethical and moral views on the use of slave-labour within the Thai fishing industry?Originally posted by Delayed View PostLast edited by CHEEKYFOKKER; 05-02-2015, 08:42 AM.Comment
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EU delegates to inspect Thai fishing practices
4/05/2015
European Union representatives will arrive in Thailand next Sunday to inspect the government's fight against illegal fishing.
The government and big players in the fishing industry are rattled by the possible ban facing seafood exports.
The EU panel will monitor so-called illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) and plans to stay in the country until May 22 to gather information for EU high-level executives who will visit Thailand between May 20-22, government spokesman Yongyuth Maiyalap said Sunday.
Thailand has imposed a stricter watch on fishing vessels since the EU reported last year that many fishing practices in Thailand raised concerns over human trade and labour abuses.
The situation prompted the European Commission to give Thailand a "yellow card", which is basically a final warning, on April 21.
The commission said the country has not done enough to tackle IUU issues.
It has given the government six months to take action.
If it still fails to deliver, the EU said it would issue a "red card" and ban Thai fishery exports to the union.
Mr Yongyuth said the visit by EU representatives next Sunday will be another opportunity for the government to show it has made sincere efforts to put an end to problems that have long plagued the country.
He said Thai fisheries officials want to hear EU representatives' reactions to the solutions they have adopted because they propose including them in a national plan put forward by Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Pitipong Phuengboon Na Ayudhaya.
The plan, expected to be forwarded to the cabinet soon for approval, sets goals in the government's attempts to eradicate IUU fishing.
"The inclusion of their opinions in the plan will show our clear stance in joining the EU and international community in solving the problems," Mr Yongyuth said.
Mr Yongyuth said the government has made progress in solving IUU issues.
It is amending the Fisheries Act to better regulate Thai fishing, with a fresh legal approach expected to be enforced in the next two months, he said.
Monitoring systems have also been installed to track fishing boats, with 66% of trawlers fishing overseas now equipped with the device, according to a survey last month.
Mr Yongyuth said centres to monitor fishing vessels setting sail or coming ashore, known as "port-in-port-out", will work in full gear in 22 coastal provinces from Wednesday.
Under the system, fishing operators must inform the centres of their fishing licences, fishing equipment, boat captains and labourers.
There are now a total of 28 port-in-port-out centres, covering 297 jetties, he said.
Meanwhile, in Trat, the navy is cracking down on trawlers who illegally hire foreign labour on boats.
Also on Sunday, Navy officials, who play a key role in helping the government solve IUU problems, told fishing operators in tambon Khlong Yai to keep themselves in line with the law after finding 90% of them had illegally hired foreigners to work as boat skippers.
The finding emerged at a meeting led by Capt Samroeng Chanso, deputy chief of staff of the 1st Naval Area Command.
Trat borders Cambodia, and it is common to see foreigners illegally working on Thai fishing vessels.
bangkokpost.comComment
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Nine-year ordeal at sea recalled
Pratch Rujivanarom
May 6, 2015
Nearly a decade ago, 14-year-old Komsan Sakulchatthong left home to work in a Samut Sakhon seafood plant, where he was eventually persuaded to work on a fishing boat with the promise of a bigger paycheque.
The young man found himself spending the next nine years of his life working as a "ghost person", doing hard labour on various fishing boats in Indonesian waters without a valid seaman book or legal protection.
Now Komsan, at the age of 23, is finally home with his family in Kanchanaburi province, and he speaks emotionally about the ordeal he endured on foreign seas and the human trafficking that prevailed in the fishing industry.
"My friend told me I could make more money if I worked on a fishing vessel, so I joined the fishing crews at Mae Klong in Samut Songkhram province and went fishing in Indonesian waters," he recalled.
He said he willingly joined the fishing crew, but there were many victims of human trafficking who were there against their will.
"I received Bt10,000 from the boss before I started working and received the rest of my wage when the boat returned to shore. However, some workers received nothing because they were lured into the work by an agent who would collect all their money plus up to Bt20,000 in commission fees. Hence the agent would get around Bt20,000 to Bt30,000 per head," he said.
Many deceived workers were treated worse than others; some bosses took these workers' salaries as compensation for the commission fees they had to pay agents, he said.
"In other cases, agents would bring newcomers to a karaoke restaurant to eat and drink and do whatever they liked. At the end of the night, they would receive an overly expensive bill. They would then have to work on the fishing vessels to pay their debt," he said.
Because of the shortage of fishermen, the owners of fishing vessels had to rely on the agents to supply workers for them, he explained. The agents found workers among rural people looking for jobs in Bangkok, and the targeted venues were places like railway stations and bus terminals. They often made lofty promises of well-paid jobs.
Komsan described himself as a "ghost person" in Indonesia because, on his first journey to that country, he was so drunk that he could not get back to the boat on time and he found himself stranded there.
"There are two kinds of ghost people, the workers who accidentally miss the return journey like me and the escaped workers who can't stand the brutality of the fishing vessel's captain or the hardship on board," he said.
"From what I have been through, working on fishing boats is hard work. The working hours vary, as it depends on each day's workload, but the crews usually have to work from 5 in the morning to 10 at night," Komsan recalled.
"If you are inexperienced or working slowly, you may be scolded or beaten by your captain or your co-workers," he added.
As an illegal immigrant in Indonesia, Komsan had to work for other boats by using a fake seaman's book to earn a living.
He also could not return to Thailand, as there would be problem with the captain.
"Most of the owners of the vessels have an Indonesian branch office. When I worked for their company, the office would issue a fake seaman's book for me so I could work for them without being caught by Indonesian border police," he said.
Komsan was recently rescued by a joint operation led by Thailand's Social Development and Human Security Ministry and returned to Thailand. "Now I just want to work in my home town and be near my family," he said.
About 4,000 fishery workers from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar are currently stranded in Indonesia, according to the Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation.
nationmultimedia.comComment
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Thailand says making progress against illegal fishing
Reporting by Pracha Hariraksapitak; Writing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Alex Richardson
May 6 (Reuters) - Thailand has made significant headway in the fight against illegal fishing, Deputy Prime Minister Pridiyathorn Devakula said on Wednesday, following a decision by the European Union last month to give the country six months to drastically clean up its fishing industry.
The world's third-largest seafood exporter was issued a "yellow card" by the EU and risks an embargo on its fish exports in October unless it cracks down on illegal fishing.
Thailand's annual exports to the EU are estimated to be worth between 575 million euros and 730 million euros ($645-$820 million).
Pridiyathorn said major weaknesses identified by the EU have been resolved, including the registration of thousands of undocumented fishing vessels.
"Every organisation has solved the important problems including boat registration and installation of vessel monitoring and traceability systems, in order to decipher where the fish comes from, what it is, which waters it was caught from and what the vessel names are," said Pridiyathorn.
A high percentage of the Thai fishing fleet is unregistered and outside government control. Thailand's fishing sector also employs thousands of migrant workers from neighbouring countries including Cambodia and Myanmar.
Some are trafficked into the country illegally.
An EU source in Thailand, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the EU's decision did not take into account the use of illegal migrant labour on Thai fishing boats.
"This is about illegal fishing vessels and fishing practices and what is known as illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing," she said.
Some Thai fishermen told Reuters last month that they were sceptical the country could clean up its act in time..
Pridiyathorn admitted that Thailand was having difficulty checking historical fishing data.
"What we are having trouble with is checking records retroactively because this involves checking not only in Thailand but also with other, neighbouring countries."
An EU delegation is due to visit Thailand next week to discuss progress and action plans with the Thai government. ($1 = 0.8902 euros)
reuters.comComment
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Thailand tries to clean up its fishing act
SHWE AUNG
7 May 2015
Burmese migrant worker on Thai fishing trawler
(PHOTO: John Hulme) Associated Press.said in April he would take action.
An independent reportComment
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Slaves fishing for your seafood
Dean Irvine, Saima Mohsin, and Kocha Olarn CNN
May 11, 2015
As demand for seafood rises, so does need for cheap manpower
David Hecker
Getty Images Six years a slave
Looking back on his ordeal, that he says lasted from January 2009 to March 2015, Senasook rarely saw land, as the boat he was on roamed further and further from Thai waters in search of increasingly scarce fish.
Its catch was part of Thailand's multi-billion dollar seafood industry that feeds tens of millions in Europe and the United States.
Senasook describes his life on board as one full of intimidation, sleep deprivation and regular beatings from the boat's captain.
"(The captain) kicked and punched me," he said. "My nose and mouth were bleeding. I still have blood clotted in my teeth. My jaw hurts every time I chew."
With no way to escape, he became suicidal.
"I was thinking of my family, my mother. There were times, I was about to jump into the sea to kill myself.
"My friend from the engine room held me back. Otherwise I would have been dead by now," he said.
Senasook says the boat's captain kept his and the crew's ID at all times, essentially holding them captive.
When Senasook did finally get his hands on his identity card on Ambon, he was horrified to see it was in a false name. He had gone from being captive on board a fishing boat to being stranded on a distant island.
"There are many of my friends die in Indonesia. And their graves were with wrong names," said Senasook. "Like, if I died, at my grave it would not bear my name but it would be someone else."
In desperation, he wrote an open letter to the Thai Prime Minister asking for help. That helped to release him from Indonesian custody, but, isolated and penniless, he could not make his way home to Thailand.
He received a final payment of 1,750 baht ($53) from his ship's captain, but was then told he needed to pay 20,000 baht ($615) for the agent fee that brought him on the boat in 2009.
The size of the problem: unknown
Eventually he received assistance from Thai-based Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN) and was repatriated to Thailand last month.
He was one of the more fortunate ones. The LPN discovered a similar situation on the nearby island of Benjina, where the group says hundreds of other fishermen from across Southeast Asia were trapped and living in desperate conditions.
The rights group estimates there could be up to 3,000 trafficked victims working on boats in these seas.
"(The fishermen on Ambon and Benjina) have forged or no documents so can't return home," said the LPN's Patima Tangpratyakoon. "The situation is severe."
But the problem of modern day slaves fishing for seafood that ends up on dinner plates on the other side of the world goes much further than these tiny Indonesian islands.
The extent of the situation is hard to gauge. Thai government figures state that there are 145,000 working in its fishing industry, with 80% of those migrant workers, mainly from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. However, activist group Raks Thai Foundation suggests there are in excess of 200,000 trafficked, unregistered workers.
The exact number of fishing vessels is also unknown -- official figures put them at around 57,000 -- because registration is lax. The real number could be double that.
International attention, government response
The issue of slavery and rights abuses in the Thai fishing industry has become acute in recent years. As the global demand for seafood has increased, the Thai economy improved, so attracting workers to dangerous jobs on fishing boats has become more difficult.
Last year the U.S. State Department downgraded Thailand to the lowest tier on its Trafficking in Persons Report 2014, which can result in the withdrawal of international aid.
Last month the European Union called Thailand a "non-cooperating" country because of poor monitoring and control of its fishing vessels and the trade of fish and seafood from other countries into Thailand.
Unless it cracks down on the situation, Thailand faces a financially damaging embargo on its fish exports to the EU from October.
In response, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has declared combating human trafficking a national priority.
In a statement in March, he called on all government agencies to "clean up their houses." Traffickers and government officials that have colluded with them "no longer have any room to exist in Thai society," he said.
According to Thailand's Department of Fisheries, new control measures are being implemented.
As well as inspections of fishing vessels, boats more than 30 tons in size that travel outside of Thai waters will have to be equipped with an electronic vessel monitoring system (VMS). Without it, the boats will not be given a fishing license. However, only around 6,000 boats in the Thai fishing fleet are of this size, according to the Marine Department.
Another new government initiative that came into play in April requires each fishing vessel to list who is on board, who it is licensed to, the name of its owner, and where it will operate before it leaves port and once it returns.
These "port-out, port-in" measures "will help enable us to reduce the risk of human trafficking, reduce the risk of force labor," said Warapon Prompol, deputy director-general, Department of Fisheries.
Crew manifests were not previously required.
"For the Marine Department we can check only a certain type of vessel, a certain size, too. But now the government is trying to reduce the size (of the vessel) that allows that we can check them," said Chula Sukmanop, director-general to the Marine Department.
He added that enforcement is made more difficult because all too often ships will change crew once they leave port.
Lack of enforcement, lack of clarity
While laws against human trafficking exist in the country -- a new Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was approved as recently as March -- it has often been this lack of enforcement that has allowed exploitation of fishermen to continue.
"There have been laws that should penalize employers with penalties and not just the migrants themselves, but they've been rarely enforced in the past," said Max Tunon, senior program manager for the International Labour Organization, who specializes in migrant workers' rights in Southeast Asia.
"This is the most attention there's been on the issue, coming from the highest level," he added. "There's a greater acknowledgment that corruption exists and that increasing regulation (of the industry) needs to be linked to the broader issues of migration."
Exports by Thai seafood companies to the United States and Europe are worth around $2.5 billion annually, with Thai Union Frozen Products (TUF) one of the largest -- and owner of the John West and Chicken of the Sea brands.
In a statement in March, Khun Thiraphong Chansiri, TUF's president and CEO, called human trafficking in its supply chain "utterly unacceptable," but said "we all have to admit that it is difficult to ensure the Thai seafood industry's supply chain is 100% clean."
Progress to combat the problems of trafficked workers and slave labor has been made thanks to market and trade pressure, said Tunon. But it's still hard to see real change on the ground.
"It's been a challenge for years and it will be hard to measure progress because there has not been much of a baseline from which to gather credible information on the problem," said Tunon.
"The attention is now on the fishing industry, as it's particularly vulnerable, but this could help better protection for migrant workers in sections that don't have consumer or trade pressure, that aren't so visible because they don't feed into the global supply chain."
koat.comComment
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Indonesian Police Arrest 7 in Seafood Slavery Case
MARGIE MASON
May 12, 2015
Two Indonesians and five Thais were arrested on charges of human trafficking connected with slavery in the seafood industry, Indonesian police said Tuesday. They were the first suspects taken into custody since the case was revealed by The Associated Press in a report two months ago.
The arrests were made Monday and late Friday in the remote island village of Benjina, said Lt. Col. Arie Dharmanto, National Police anti-trafficking unit chief.
Five Thai boat captains and two Indonesian employees at Pusaka Benjina Resources, one of the largest fishing firms in eastern Indonesia, were taken into custody. The arrests come after the AP reported on slave-caught seafood shipped from Benjina to Thailand, where it can be exported and enter the supply chains of some of America's biggest food retailers.
"They have committed an extraordinary crime, and we will not let it happen again in Indonesia," Dharmanto said. "We will not stop here. We will pursue those who are involved in this case, whoever they are."
Police will recommend they be charged by prosecutors. If the men go to trial, they could face jail sentences of up to 15 years and fines as high as $46,000, he said.
He said the number of suspects would likely climb because authorities are still investigating how thousands of foreign fishermen from Myanmar, Cambodia, LaosComment
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Enslaved fishermen head home to Burma
14 May 2015
The islands of Tual and Benjina, situated off the coast of Irian Jaya or West Papua, where some 500 enslaved fishermen were held. Associated Press discovered the trafficked fisherman, who told reporters of wretched abuse and even murder at the hands of brutal boat owners.
The report traced slave-caught seafood from Benjina back to Thailand, where the fishermen were illegally recruited.
dvb.noComment
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60 Burmese Migrants Freed From Slave-Like Conditions in Thailand: Rights Group
KHIN OO THA
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Burmese migrant workers being rescued from prawn processing facility in Mahachai, Thailand.
(Photo: Myanmar Association in Thailand)
CHIANG MAI,Comment
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Thai Navy clamps down on illegal fishing
Panu Wongcha-um
15 May 2015
The Royal Thai Navy has captured five illegal fishing boats and arrested 43 Vietnamese fishermen after a 12-hour operation.
A Thai patrol boat docking a fishing vessel for the Royal Thai Navy to move in and clear the area.
(Photo: Kittiphum Sringammuang)Comment
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