But they warn that major loopholes persist, and momentum to tackle them is waning. According to an index produced by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, Thailand remained among the “worst performers” in terms of prevalence of IUU fishing in its fleet in 2021, alongside countries including Taiwan and China.
“As part of the promises to the European Union, Thailand had to amend its trafficking in persons law, to also make forced labour a crime under Thai law,” Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, told a recent panel. “But so far, there’s been almost no action by the Thai authorities on issues of forced labour.”
He added that the government has done “very little” to educate law enforcement agencies about what forced labour is, contributing to a lack of “practical implementation of the law”. None of the fleet owners or captains who have committed abuses have gone to prison, for instance.
“The Thai government has been busy declaring victory, [saying] that they basically succeeded in ending this human trafficking… don’t believe it, they’re playing games,” Robertson said. “This situation is an unfinished agenda, and forced labour is still present on fishing boats that are going from Thai ports.”
‘Endless sea and sky’
Patima Tungpuchayakul, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and co-founder of the Labour Protection Organization, agreed. The group has helped close to 5,000 fishermen escape modern slavery, including nearly 2,000 captive and stranded fishermen stuck in Indonesia. It was there, in a hamlet called Benjina on the remote Aru islands, that she met Sriwaurai.
The fishermen had spent six years trapped in cramped, brutal conditions aboard a Thai trawler ship. During that time, he had just four separate weeks of rest on land, as the boat would generally transfer its haul and pick up supplies from a ‘mother ship’.
“Sometimes we’d see other ships, but we’d never see land. It was just endless sea and sky,” Sriwaurai said, adding that daily life was just as repetitive. “To work in the fishing ship, it was 24/7 – everyday, rain or shine… It was just a constant cycle of dropping the net, sorting the fish, pulling up a full net, sorting the fish.”
The pattern was punctured only by violence and mistreatment. “Even when we were really sick, the skipper made us work… some men died as a result. Really, it was torture.”
In Sriwaurai’s case, the lack of medical care cost him his left eyesight. As the crew were separating the species in their haul, chucking fish into various piles across the deck, an awry throw slapped his eye. Denied access to a doctor, Sriwaurai eventually went blind.
