Open letter to PM Prayut on recruiting prisoners for the fishing industry

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Open letter to PM Prayut on recruiting prisoners for the fishing industry
Special to The Nation

Dear Prime Minister,

We write today on behalf of 45 regional and international human rights and labour associations to express our deep concern about a pilot project proposed by the Labour Ministry to recruit prisoners to work on Thai fishing vessels. As outlined to date, this project poses a serious threat to the human rights of prisoners, and use of their labour will violate international human rights standards and codes of conduct of many international companies. The project will also likely fail to address the fundamental causes of the labour shortage that fuels trafficking in Thailand's fishing industry.

If implemented, this initiative could strengthen arguments that the Thai government is unwilling to take serious steps to address human trafficking on fishing boats and could threaten any possible upgrade of Thailand's Tier 3 rank in the forthcoming 2015 US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report rankings.

As you may be aware, the fishing industry plays a vital part in Thailand's economy. From January to May in 2014 alone, fishery production accounted for exports worth Bt89,596 million (based on the export 704,658 tonnes of seafood products).

The fishing industry employs upwards of 300,000 people, 90 per cent of whom are migrant labourers.

The vast majority of those working on fishing boats are not legally registered and are highly vulnerable to abuse. A string of stories throughout 2014 in news outlets including the BBC, Reuters and the Guardian exposed horrific working conditions including human trafficking, debt bondage, physical abuse, murder, non-payment of wages, confinement and 20-hour working days on some Thai fishing boats. These brutal and inhumane working conditions are the most significant reason why there is a prevailing labour shortage in the fishing industry.

Simply replacing vulnerable migrant workers with released prisoners will not solve the abusive working conditions and many other problems present in the Thai fishing industry. While the Labour Ministry has made assurances that prisoners will only be voluntarily recruited for this project, this does not diminish the fact that people in prison are often subject to coercion from prison authorities, and that it will be extremely difficult to ensure that those being sent to fishing boats are actually volunteering to do so.

The Labour Ministry has also repeatedly demonstrated that it cannot effectively monitor conditions of work and timely payment of wages on Thai fishing vessels, and has done little to effectively rectify this regulatory deficiency. Thus, the Thai government is not in a position to fulfil the ministry's claims that prisoners placed on these ships will be treated in line with Thai labour law, nor can it provide reasonable assurances that these prisoners will not end up in conditions of forced labour.

Furthermore, prison labour for commercial, for-profit purposes is a violation of international norms and standards. Under the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, adopted by the UN as guidance, prison labour must be of a vocational nature, not used as punishment, and prisoners should be allowed to choose the type of work they wish to perform. The work must not be driven by financial motives, and no prisoner should be forced to work for private entities. In addition, International Labour Organisation Convention No 29 on Forced Labour, which Thailand has ratified, states that prison labour for private entities may be only undertaken by consent of the prisoner. Though the details of the plan proposed by the Labour Ministry have not been made public, it would apparently violate these rights standards given the lack of choices for prisoners to work other than on fishing boats, and the clear for-profit motives of Thai fishing boat owners.

The reputation of the Thai fishing industry is already suffering from critical coverage by the international media. International and Thai companies buying Thai seafood have had to increase their scrutiny over their purchases of seafood originating in Thailand to try and avoid buying products produced by forced labour, and some international companies have already decided simply not to source seafood from Thailand rather than deal with that risk.

This ill-advised and rights-threatening programme to place prisoners on fishing boats will significantly add to the bad reputation of Thailand's seafood products.

Major Western retailers are unlikely to want to purchase products sourced or made with prison labour and can be expected to order their purchasing agents to avoid any products from boats tainted by this prison work programme. Negative publicity may taint the entire fishing industry further, beyond those vessels with prisoners working on board.

If this programme goes forward, we will raise our concerns with the United States Department of State as it considers how to assess Thailand's performance on trafficking in persons (TIP) in the coming months. As you know, abuses in the seafood industry were one of the primary reasons Thailand was downgraded in the State Department's annual TIP report to Tier 3 in 2014. This prison labour programme will be another black mark on Thailand's record, indicating Thailand is failing to tackle abuses and forced labour in the Thai fishing fleets.

The Thai government should recognise the only way to address the labour shortage on Thai fishing vessels is to make enforcement of labour laws on fishing boats a priority and improve conditions so that the sector can attract workers to voluntarily work on the boats. Such a policy and course of action would provide positive outcomes for all stakeholders: fishermen are assured their rights will be respected, Thai industry can count on a steady supply of workers, and Western seafood buyers can rest assured that their supply chain is not blighted by forced labour. The Thai government should realise that the prison labour scheme will lead in precisely the opposite direction of these possible positive outcomes.

In conclusion, the Thai government should immediately and unequivocally end any further consideration of a policy to place prisoners as workers on Thai fishing fleets, and terminate all steps by the Labour Ministry and the Justice Ministry to implement such a pilot programme.

(Signatories include Human Rights Watch, International Trade Union Confederation, Greenpeace, US Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking, Thai Human Rights and Development Foundation.)

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Open-letter-to-PM-Prayut-on-recruiting-prisoners-f-30252015.html


-- The Nation 2015-01-16

[chooka]

Damn the dear leader must be really pissed by now, can't traffic in slave labour from Burma now Human Rights are getting upset they can't use chain gangs and abuse convicts. Geez the British built Australia 200 years ago using convicts as slave labour. What does Thailand have to do to improve thier human rights image, actually employ Thais and pay them?

[Seastallion]

Silly and illogical letter that I'm surprised has been signed by those organisations. I'm so surprised, that I wouldn't mind betting that the claim of those signatories may be fake.

Several times in the letter, they quote rules for prisoners, yet even the letter acknowledges that the people proposed to work are not prisoners, but ex-cons.

They also ignore the details already released regarding systems put in place to ensure the workers (ex cons) are treated properly. Those details were announced at the initial announcement of the plan.

[NCC1701A]

i think chain gangs should pick up all the trash along the highways and beaches.

Thailand is drowning in its own filth.

Edited January 16, 2015 by NCC1701A

[HeijoshinCool]

John, George, and Ringo are the rest of the world.

Thailand is Paul.

[Manbing]

People pay vast sums to go fishing in the waters of Thailand. Sounds kind of idyllic as far a prison sentences go.

With a sterling reputation for a fair justice system and fishing industry beyond reproach I can't see how this clever little plan will fail.

Its not as if its like slavery or anything.

[binjalin]

"terminate all steps by the Labour Ministry and the Justice Ministry to implement such a pilot programme"

nothing fishy about a 'pilot programme' all big boats need pilot's right?

[marko kok prong]

Hairbrained scheme.

[richusa]

They will pee on all the fish....

[Rumble]

Actually in most countries prisoners who have a record of good behaviour that have almost completed their sentence are gradually introduced back into society by doing communal work under supervision under a voluntary bases. The problem here is the fact that in the past slave labour was used in the fishing vessels, so the eyes of the world are on our fishing fleets. One must also look at the situation through the prisoners view, I am sure that after being locked up for years under not so good conditions a bit of freedom, fresh air, and the opportunity to accumulate some money, even under the hard labour of working on a fishing boat is most welcomed. Providing that it is voluntary work which can not be defined as a "chain gang" which in essence is forced labour.

[Eliot Rosewater]

Silly and illogical letter that I'm surprised has been signed by those organisations. I'm so surprised, that I wouldn't mind betting that the claim of those signatories may be fake.

Several times in the letter, they quote rules for prisoners, yet even the letter acknowledges that the people proposed to work are not prisoners, but ex-cons.

They also ignore the details already released regarding systems put in place to ensure the workers (ex cons) are treated properly. Those details were announced at the initial announcement of the plan.

I believe it has been stated that the plan is to use prisoners in their last year of incarceration; NOT ex-cons.

[AleG]

Silly and illogical letter that I'm surprised has been signed by those organisations. I'm so surprised, that I wouldn't mind betting that the claim of those signatories may be fake.

Several times in the letter, they quote rules for prisoners, yet even the letter acknowledges that the people proposed to work are not prisoners, but ex-cons.

They also ignore the details already released regarding systems put in place to ensure the workers (ex cons) are treated properly. Those details were announced at the initial announcement of the plan.

I noticed that too, after clearly stating the the program would involve released prisoners it goes on a long tirade against the evils of using prisoners as forced labour. There are countless examples of programs to provide employment for ex convicts throughout the world.

That doesn't detract from the need to properly regulate the fishing industry, but to entice outrage like that it is unethical, the obvious result will be quote mining by media outlets, like this:

The Thai government wants to send chain gangs to sea

No mention of the proposed program actually using ex-convicts

Groups urge Thailand not to send prisoners on fishing boats

No mention of the proposed program actually using ex-convicts

Thai prison labor plan draws fire from trafficking critics

No mention of the proposed program actually using ex-convicts

And so on and so forth.

If they want to campaign to improve the conditions of the fishing industry workforce I'm all for it, but they should do it honestly or they will undermine their credibility.

[AleG]

Silly and illogical letter that I'm surprised has been signed by those organisations. I'm so surprised, that I wouldn't mind betting that the claim of those signatories may be fake.

Several times in the letter, they quote rules for prisoners, yet even the letter acknowledges that the people proposed to work are not prisoners, but ex-cons.

They also ignore the details already released regarding systems put in place to ensure the workers (ex cons) are treated properly. Those details were announced at the initial announcement of the plan.

I believe it has been stated that the plan is to use prisoners in their last year of incarceration; NOT ex-cons.

From The Nation:

In December, the Labour Ministry said it would send consenting prisoners who had less than a year left of their sentence to work on fishing boats to ease a labour shortage and to combat human trafficking.

On Wednesday, the ministry said the scheme was intended to help ex-prisoners find work and it would not send inmates to sea.

'Only helping them get jobs'

"We've found that ex-prisoners are not welcome in the Thai workforce so we've found a way to help them," Labour Minister Surasak Karnjanarat told Reuters.

A pilot programme in Samut Sakhon employs 173 ex-prisoners to work on fishing boats, he added.

Seems that either the nature of the program was misinterpreted at first or changes were introduced. Since the pilot program is using ex-prisoners I'd go with the second one.

Of course this being Thailand programs like that, which can be easily abused, should be kept under close scrutiny.

[noitom]

Thais knew all along this was being done for years. What Thai crackpot dreamed up this scheme? Tar and feather Thais responsible for this reprehensible action.

[wabothai]

"to ease a labor shortage"

Prisoners and illegal aliens are used to fill the positions,

How many times I find Thai men sleeping in their hammocks while their wifes are working?

Plenty of legal workers available but too lazy. Besides how much are the inmates and illegal aliens earning?

You ask me ! A scam by the rich. Follow the money stream !

[reptile91602]

Again what is the problem here? If the Thai prisoners are given a choice then that is it. Sounds fair to me even if the prisoner has a crapy boss and job. If he prefers it to the jail cell than so be it.

[rickirs]

A startingly stark but reasoned letter. It comes at a sensitive time when the Junta is sending to the USA a status report on its progress with human trafficking. These HR organizations have raised the stakes for the US to remove Thailand from Tier 3. I suspect the US (especially with a Republican-controlled Congress) will keep Thailand in Tier 3 and probably reduce import of Thai seafood by 10% as a warning to start producing results and not just plans and procedures.