August 23, 2017 — Thailand’s $7 billion fishing trade is among the world’s biggest. In recent years, it’s also been one of the most severely scandalized — an industry blighted by reports of slavery on fishing trawlers. Many of these tales recall 18th century-style barbarity at sea.
Each year, Thailand’s docks have traditionally launched thousands of trawlers into the ocean, often with crews of roughly 20 men. Most are not complicit in forced labor. But less scrupulous captains have taken advantage of the ocean’s lawlessness.
In port cities, they’ve bought men from Myanmar and Cambodia for $600 to $1,000 per head. Duped by traffickers, the migrants come to Thailand seeking under-the-table work in factories or farms.
Instead, they’ve found themselves hustled onto fishing boats that motor into the abyss, thousands of miles from civilization, where they are forced to fish for no pay. Various investigations have uncovered thousands of cases.
As one deputy boat captain of a Thai trawler told GlobalPost: “Once a captain is tired of a [captive], he’s sold to another captain for profit. A guy can be out there for 10 years just getting sold over and over.”
But Thailand is now installing a new system that — if effective — could seriously reform an industry that has been murky for far too long.
“We’re trying to change as fast as possible,” says Adisorn Promthep, director general of Thailand’s Department of Fisheries. “We want to make sure no vessel escapes our scope.”
Installed last year by Thailand’s military government, Adisorn is charged with bringing transparency to a business marked by opacity.
Read the full story at Public Radio International