Countries investigate fishing slavery reports

BENJINA, Indonesia – Officials from three countries are traveling to remote islands in eastern Indonesia to investigate how thousands of foreign fishermen were abused and forced into catching seafood that could end up in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

A week after the Associated Press published a story about slavery in the seafood industry – including video of men locked in a cage – delegations from Thailand and Indonesia visited the island village of Benjina. A government team from Myanmar also is scheduled to visit the area next week to try to determine how many of its citizens are stuck there and what can be done to bring them home.

The visits reflect how the problem stretches across several countries, and how difficult it has been to resolve. The migrant workers lured or even kidnapped into fishing are usually from Myanmar, also known as Burma, one of the poorest countries in the world, along with Cambodia, Laos and poor areas of Thailand. They are brought through Thailand to fishing boats in Indonesia, where many say they are beaten, made to work long hours with little or no pay, and prevented from leaving. Their catch is then shipped back to Thailand, where it enters global markets, the AP story documented.

Thursday, the atmosphere was tense as a group of Burmese men on Benjina talked nervously to the AP. One older man with dark, weathered skin recounted how he was recruited from Myanmar and promised a good job in neighboring Thailand, but was sent to Indonesia instead. He said he had been working for six and a half years on boats in Indonesia, where the captain would swear at him and kick him in the ribs with boots.

“I know talking to you is dangerous, that our lives are threatened, but this is the only way to get out of here,” he said. The AP is withholding his name out of safety concerns. “I just want to go home to see my parents before they die.”

About a dozen fishing boats were docked on shore, while others bobbed far out enough in the water that officials could not see the crews. When the AP tried to interview Burmese workers on one boat, security guards at Pusaka Benjina Resources, the company that runs the fishing operation, barked into their radios and ran to stop the men from talking. Site manager Herman Martino said men were not allowed to speak to the news media while on the trawlers.

Martino said about 1,000 fishermen are in Benjina. At first, he said all were Thai. However, when pressed, he acknowledged that their official documents identified them as Thai, but it’s possible some were from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Martino also denied allegations of slavery and said that although hours are irregular, workers are given time to rest and do not labor up to 22 hours a day, as many fishermen have reported. He tried to explain the cage the AP earlier found inside the company compound with eight men locked inside.

“What is described as a detention house is merely a temporary place, which is endorsed by immigration, to accommodate those committing light crimes such as theft, drunkenness or fighting among themselves on board,” he said. “They were handed over by their Thai captains.”

Immigration officials have denied any knowledge of the cell.

Benjina was one of several island stops this week for the government officials, who talked with migrant workers and visited a graveyard where dozens of fishermen were buried.

Thai officials said they already had located and repatriated some mistreated Thai workers.

While Benjina was the site of some of the worst abuses, as many as 4,000 men, many trafficked or enslaved, are now abandoned and stranded across the islands, according to the International Organization for Migration.