“All he did was ask to go home,” begins a harrowing tale yesterday about a Myanmar man sold into slavery aboard a Thai fishing vessel at 18. That was in 1993.
For 22 years, Myint Naing was forced to work on the boats supplying the world’s tables with seafood under inhuman conditions. These years were punctuated with periods of escape where he lived wild with other escaped fishermen on an island in Indonesia. They knew better than to seek help from officials who would only sell them back into slavery.
Following the AP reports in March, Indonesia sent authorities and rescued more than 800 of the human slaves, including Myint.
Thailand earns $7 billion a year from a seafood industry that runs on labor from the poorest parts of the country, along with Cambodia, Laos and especially Myanmar, otherwise known as Burma. Up to 200,000 estimated migrants, most of them illegal, work at sea. Their catch ends up halfway around the globe in the United States, Europe and Japan — on dinner tables and in cat food bowls.
As overfishing decimates stocks near Thailand’s shores, trawlers have been forced to venture farther and farther into more plentiful foreign waters. The dangerous work keeps men at sea for months or even years with fake Thai identity documents, trapped aboard floating prisons run by captains with impunity. Though Thai officials deny it, they have long been accused of turning a blind eye to such practices.
After easily skirting police at the border with Thailand and being held in a small shed with little food for more than a month, Myint was shoved onto a boat. The men were at sea for 15 days and finally docked in the far eastern corner of Indonesia. The captain shouted that everyone on board now belonged to him, using words Myint would never forget:
“You Burmese are never going home. You were sold, and no one is ever coming to rescue you.”
Read the full story from the Associated Press.
Related:
Faced with regulation, fishing association threatens strike
EU import ban could cost 30 billion baht
Journalist helps free Thai slaves held in Indonesia
Your seafood comes from slaves, AP confirms
Got it? Now watch the latest from Coconuts TV!
Reader Interactions