An enslaved Thai fisherman in Indonesia, as photographed by investigative journalist Thapanee Letsrichai.
Two Myanmar and six Cambodian men were removed from Thai-owned fishing boat the Blissful Reefer, a massive, 1,000-square-metre transport ship now impounded in Daru, Papua New Guinea, about 200 kilometres north of Australia.
Officials said the fishermen appeared to be part of a larger group of forced labourers being transported from Thailand to be distributed onto various fishing boats, said George Gigauri, head of the International Organization for Migration in Port Moresby.
The men are part of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of poor migrants from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos who are forced to fish for the Thai seafood industry. When workers run away, become sick or even die, they are easily replaced by new recruits who are tricked or coerced by false promises of jobs in Thailand.
The story of Aung San Win, 19, who was among the rescued men, started the same way as with hundreds of other enslaved fishermen.
He said a broker came to his home in Myanmar and convinced him and several other young men to go to Thailand where they could find good work in factories. But when they arrived, their passports and identification cards were taken. They were then pushed onto boats and told they would have to fish for three years and owed nearly US$600 for their documents, he said.
“They told us that we have to get off in this place and work here,” said Aung San Win, who added that it had taken about 20 days to reach Papua New Guinea, after stops in Singapore and Australia. “I don’t want to work here. I don’t even know what this place is.”
Enslaved fishermen are routinely hauled from Thailand to work on smaller Thai trawlers in foreign waters where they are given little or no pay. They were routinely denied medicine, forced to work 22-hour shifts with no days off and given inadequate food and impure water.
The ship seized in Papua New Guinea, the Blissful Reefer, appears to be connected to a trafficking ring that was sending seafood caught by slaves around the Indonesian island of Benjina to the United States.
Indonesia Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, whose investigators had been chasing the boats from Benjina, said she has asked Papua New Guinea to send back any illegal trawlers that fled her country for prosecution.
A patrol boat is expected to be sent to search waters in the strait along with a surveillance plane, Mr Gigauri said. The eight men aboard the Blissful Reefer will be returned home.
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