Trafficked into slavery on Thai trawlers to catch food for prawns

Thai 'trash fish' workers unload the catch at Songkhla port. Chris Kelly/Guardian

The Thai fishing industry is built on slavery, with men often beaten, tortured and sometimes killed - all to catch 'trash fish' to feed the cheap farmed prawns sold in the west

There is nothing but a jagged line of splinters where Myint Thein’s teeth once stood – a painful reminder, he says, of the day he was beaten and sold on to a Thai fishing boat.

The tattooed Burmese fisherman, 29, bears a number of other “reminders” of his life at sea: two deep cuts on each arm, calloused fingers contorted like claws and facial muscles that twitch involuntarily from fear. For the past two years, Myint Thein has been forced to work 20-hour days as a slave on the high seas, enduring regular beatings from his Thai captain and eating little more than a plate of rice each day. But now that he’s been granted a rare chance to come back to port, he’s planning something special to mark the occasion: his escape.

Using a pair of rusty scissors, Myint Thein chops off his long, scraggly locks. He rinses himself down with a hose, slips on his only pair of trousers and, peering out at his surroundings, remembers not to open his mouth too wide. A man with no teeth is easy to remember.

Under the tinny roof of Songkhla’s commercial port, on Thailand’s south-east coast, the imperial-blue cargo boat that brought Myint Thein back to shore is unloading its catch, barrel by barrel. The day’s international fish trading has just begun, and buyers are milling about in bright yellow rubber boots, running slimy scales between their fingers, as hobbling cats nibble at the fishbones and guts strewn across the pavement.

Myint Thein doesn’t have much time to talk, so he tells us the basics. He paid a middleman two years ago to smuggle him across the border into Thailand and find him a job in a factory. After an arduous journey travelling through dense jungle, over bumpy roads and across rough waves, Myint Thein finally arrived in Kantang, a Thai port on its western, Andaman coast, where he discovered he’d been sold to a boat captain. “When I realised what had happened, I told them I wanted to go back,” he says hurriedly. “But they wouldn’t let me go. When I tried to escape, they beat me and smashed all my teeth.”

For the next 20 months, Myint Thein and three other Burmese men who were also sold to the boat trawled international waters, catching anything from squid and tuna to “trash fish”, also known as bycatch – inedible or infant species of fish later ground into fishmeal for Thailand’s multibillion-dollar farmed prawn industry. The supply chain runs from the slaves through the fishmeal to the prawns to UK and US retailers. The product of Myint Thein’s penniless labour might well have ended up on your dinner plate.

Despite public promises to clean up the industry, many Thai officials not only turn a blind eye to abuse, the Guardian found, they are often complicit in it, from local police through to high-ranking politicians and members of the judiciary – meaning that slaves often have nowhere to turn when they have the opportunity to run.

“One day I was stopped by the police and asked if I had a work permit,” says Ei Ei Lwin, 29, a Burmese migrant who was detained on the docks at Songkhla port. “They wanted a 10,000 baht (£180) bribe to release me. I didn’t have it, and I didn’t know anyone else who would, so they took me to a secluded area, handed me over to a broker, and sent me to work on a trawler.”

Brokers

Thailand produces roughly 4.2m tonnes of seafood every year, 90% of which is destined for export, official figures show. The US, UK and EU are prime buyers of this seafood – with Americans buying half of all Thailand’s seafood exports and the UK alone consuming nearly 7% of all Thailand’s prawn exports.

“The use of trafficked labour is systematic in the Thai fishing industry,” says Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, who describes a “predatory relationship” between these migrant workers and the captains who buy them.

“The industry would have a hard time operating in its current form without it.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-ranking broker explained to the Guardian how Thai boat owners phone him directly with their “order”: the quantity of men they need and the amount they’re willing to pay for them.

“Each guy costs about 25,000-35,000 baht [£450-£640] – we go find them,” explains the goateed broker, who operates out of the industrial fishing and prawn-processing hub of Samut Sakhon, just south of the capital, Bangkok.

“The boat owner finds the way to pay and then that debt goes to the labourers.”

At various points along the way, checkpoints are passed and officials bribed – with Thai border police often playing an integral role.

“Police and brokers – the way I see it – we’re business partners,” explains the broker, who claims to have trafficked thousands of migrants into Thailand over the past five years. “We have officers working on both sides of the Thai-Burmese border. If I can afford the bribe, I let the cop sit in the car and we take the main road.

“This is a big chain,” he adds. “You have to understand: everyone’s profiting from it. These are powerful people with powerful positions – politicians.”

The price captains pay for these men is a extremely low even by historical standards. According to the anti-trafficking activist Kevin Bales, slaves cost 95% less than they did at the height of the 19th-century slave trade – meaning that they are not regarded as investments for important cash crops such as cotton or sugar, as they were historically, but as disposable commodities.

For the migrants who believed Thailand would bring them opportunity, the reality of being sent out to sea is devastating.

“They told me I was going to work in a pineapple factory,” recalls Kyaw, a broad-shouldered 21-year-old from rural Burma. “But when I saw the boats, I realised I’d been sold … I was so depressed, I wanted to die.”

Chained

Life on a 15-metre trawler is brutal, violent and unpredictable. Many of the slaves interviewed by the Guardian recalled being fed just a plate of rice a day. Men would take fitful naps in sleeping quarters so cramped they would crawl to enter them, before being summoned back out to trawl fish at any hour. Those who were too ill to work were thrown overboard, some interviewees reported, while others said they were beaten if they so much as took a lavatory break.

Many of these slave ships stay out at sea for years at a time, trading slaves from one boat to another and being serviced by cargo boats, which travel out from Thai ports towards international borders to pick up the slave boats’ catch and drop off supplies.

The vessels catch fish and shellfish for domestic and international markets, including roughly 350,000 tonnes of trash fish, every year, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). This trash fish is separated at sea and ferried back on cargo boats to shore, where it is ground down and turned into fishmeal for multinational companies such as CP Foods, which use it in animal feed for prawn, pig and chicken farming.

CP in turn supplies food retailers and giant international supermarkets including Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour, Costco, Morrisons, the Co-operative and Iceland, with frozen and fresh prawns, and ready-made meals.

“Just about every retailer in the United Kingdom buys material from CP,” explains CP Foods’ UK managing director, Bob Miller. “We’re not here to defend what is going on. We know there’s issues with regard to the [raw] material that comes in [to port], but to what extent that is, we just don’t have visibility,” says Miller.

Source: The Guardian

Read the full story here: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/-sp-migrant-workers-new-life-enslaved-thai-fishing

Maybe this stinking mess is possibly on the junta's clean up list. Or is that just wishful thinking?

Maybe this stinking mess is possibly on the junta's clean up list. Or is that just wishful thinking?

It's a disgrace that the 'stinking mess' links directly down the chain to the Western purchasers, who are all well aware of the situation but wish to do nothing about it becasue their profits and margins also come first. What a putrid state of affairs!

The next time you are eating prawns or fish, just admit to yourself that you don't care.

Nice timing of this sad story..the same day the DSI meet the U.N. to discuss human trafficing...how many more such meetings? how many more years will the U.N. threaten Thailand with action for not complying?...same-old, same-old eh?

Nice timing of this sad story..the same day the DSI meet the U.N. to discuss human trafficing...how many more such meetings? how many more years will the U.N. threaten Thailand with action for not complying?...same-old, same-old eh?

Well to be perfectly honest we don't know with this no nonsense General seeking to make Thailand a better place.

As to when he will do some thing about it well who knows it is not exactly like he was handed a shiny new car with a blob of mud on one of the wheels.

Maybe if the UN comes down hard along with the 15 North Koreans arrested he might move it up the list of to do things.

One can always hope. Also I would like to see him imprisoning the Brokers and Captains for life.

This sounds like the history of shanghais in US ports 100 or more years ago.

Its disgraceful.

Maybe this stinking mess is possibly on the junta's clean up list. Or is that just wishful thinking?

It's a disgrace that the 'stinking mess' links directly down the chain to the Western purchasers, who are all well aware of the situation but wish to do nothing about it becasue their profits and margins also come first. What a putrid state of affairs!

there was an excellent bbc documentary about this. everyone knows what going on; local businessmen, police, navy, thai and foreign politicians, foreign embassy staff, foreign businesses and no one does anything about it. too many people are making too much money both legally and through corruption for anything to change and as long as people buy the product nothing will change. tragic situation

What a sensational article. Hope that it helps to mount global protest against Thai shrimp and slavery in the Thai industry.

The ideology of those southern provinces sanctions slavery and that has been going on for over 1400 years. Where is the outrage?

And it is no surprise that sitting right at the top of the corrupt dung heap are politicians and police.

There was an impact on Nike and other big brands when Indian and Bangladeshi sweat-shops were exposed.

What will it take to put pressure on the Western seafood giants?

The 2nd prong of the attack on this travesty, and one that would not cost a lot (relatively), is a sustained "propaganda" campaign in Burma making the population well aware of the dangers. I realise it would be hard to get word to hill villages, but a good campaign would travel well by word of mouth.

The ideology of those southern provinces sanctions slavery and that has been going on for over 1400 years. Where is the outrage?

"the goateed broker". Yes, Southern.

The ideology of those southern provinces sanctions slavery and that has been going on for over 1400 years. Where is the outrage?

"the goateed broker". Yes, Southern.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saleh_Al-Fawzan

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2003/11/11/16588041.php

One might hope that Guardian-readers, will in future also be willing to pay more at Tesco, for their Thai-rice & chicken ... but I suspect hope-in-vain.

Cheap-food equals low-wages for the producers, and it's a choice which consumers world-wide make, every day !

I am sure cracking down on CP Is a top priority of the Generals.

19th c Chinese were in the same boat. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/05/30/world/20080529PERU_11.html

Maybe this stinking mess is possibly on the junta's clean up list. Or is that just wishful thinking?

I very much doubt it considering how these boats get hold of their slaves, there is clear cut Naval involvement - all covered in the Channel 4 article that resulted in defamation charges against the lot from Phuketwan.

Rohinga come from Burma, Navy redirects to Ko Tarutao, sold onto boats, rinse, repeat. Everyone gets their cut.

Then you've only got to look at who the owners/directors are of the seafood companies that are profiting from this.

Maybe this stinking mess is possibly on the junta's clean up list. Or is that just wishful thinking?

I very much doubt it considering how these boats get hold of their slaves, there is clear cut Naval involvement - all covered in the Channel 4 article that resulted in defamation charges against the lot from Phuketwan.

Rohinga come from Burma, Navy redirects to Ko Tarutao, sold onto boats, rinse, repeat. Everyone gets their cut.

Then you've only got to look at who the owners/directors are of the seafood companies that are profiting from this.

That is karmic justice when those that practice an ideology of slavery become slaves like the Rohinga have.

Sad story, great article, thanks for posting.

Maybe this stinking mess is possibly on the junta's clean up list. Or is that just wishful thinking?

It's a disgrace that the 'stinking mess' links directly down the chain to the Western purchasers, who are all well aware of the situation but wish to do nothing about it becasue their profits and margins also come first. What a putrid state of affairs!

After reading this article, I am now ' well aware '. Thank you Guardian.

Nice timing of this sad story..the same day the DSI meet the U.N. to discuss human trafficing...how many more such meetings? how many more years will the U.N. threaten Thailand with action for not complying?...same-old, same-old eh?

Too true.

Apart from giving a few lame verbal warnings and

sending in peace keeping forces,that have no power at all and have to stand around watching people shot ect.

What do U.N really do ?

Let's hope that the Guardian site does not now get blocked like the mail,i know the reason for the mail being blocked,but up until a few days ago,you could still check the football section which unlike the rest of the paper i actually thought was quite good,now that is blocked too.

The Guardian deserve praise for raising and publicising this issue to purchasers of Thai seafood products. For too long Thailand has ignored reports and external pressure to do something about slavery and abuse of workers rights in the fishing and food industry.

The Thai Government can of course block the news, but that does not stop international consumers reading it.

There is hope though, perhaps the Thai Military have a chance to demonstrate they are not simply taking power for power's sake - a move by the Military against slavery in Thailand would, apart from the right thing to do, be a very smart PR move too.

Nice timing of this sad story..the same day the DSI meet the U.N. to discuss human trafficing...how many more such meetings? how many more years will the U.N. threaten Thailand with action for not complying?...same-old, same-old eh?

Too true.

Apart from giving a few lame verbal warnings and

sending in peace keeping forces,that have no power at all and have to stand around watching people shot ect.

What do U.N really do ?

When will the UN do anything about the slavery in the countries that have an ideology that sanctions slavery like the ideology practiced by the southern Thai provinces. Where is the outrage.

'We just don't have visibility'. I guess that's another expression to add to the list of disregard for people, like 'collateral damage'. About the only way to get action on this one is another public campaign, like the Nike effort, which did work. The supply chain involves too many people for anyone to take responsibility. Trouble is - as the article said, the slaves are disposable, and no one cares. So I for one will watch what I buy and eat fresh fish.

oh please. act all indignant all you like but you all enjoy your really really cheap prawns here or overseas. you enjoy your cheap shoes and clothes from the slave factories in indonesia and india, your 'cheap' smart phones from the factories in china. At the end of the day, the african descendants of slaves in America are all better off than those left in Africa. The machinery of the free market is still the BEST at lifting the mass from poverty. Most of the thai business leaders these days are born to chinese immigrants who suffered much the same brutality when they came over here.

it is horrid yes but if you learn to look at the big picture, life is a struggle and we don't all get to be born in the UK and get to collect welfare money while sitting on our asses watching TV and coming over to Pattaya every other month for some bang-bang time.

So, what's new in the news?
This here looks like 30 year old "news" to me .....

And when this is cleaned up will the buyers still be there or move on to a supplier with equally outrageous practices?

Still not sure how I can avoid buying CP products . I don't eat prawns and I am sire everything they sell doesn't come with a huge CP on the label. Any stores to avoid, other products ?

-*I typed this myself*-