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Beaten, imprisoned and sold into slavery - Channel 4 News reveals the fate of Burma's Muslim Rohingya refugees, who flee conflict only to end up in the clutches of brutal human traffickers.
Ex-slave labourer tells gruesome tales of torture, murder on trawlers
A fishing trawler crewman said that many of them are slave labourers, with some murdered or brutally tortured by skippers on a regular basis if they refuse to work or try to resist punishment, among gruesome revelations from him.
The informant, with a false name of Sak, said he was once stabbed in the stomach and almost died because of pain and bad hygiene. Sak said he had to put his protruding intestines back into his stomach and narrowly survived thanks to the meagre amount of food and water provided to him secretly by fellow crewmen.
He said many crewmen died of injury trauma and their bodies were thrown into the sea. "The number of people killed is countless. People are constantly getting beaten up, tortured and killed, he added.
Sak recently escaped from a trawler which had bought him from a few others who had forced him to work with no or little pay for 20 years, after being first lured into working on a trawler that operated off the shore of Songkhla. He later visited his unspecified home province and lodged a complaint with Pavena Hongsakul Charity Foundation, which was founded by Social Development and Human Security Minister Pavena.
Talking about the most gruesome punishment he had witnessed, Sak said a crewman, who was caught planning to escape, had his arms and ankles tied to ropes fastened to two trawlers. His body was torn to pieces when the trawlers moved forward. "This was aimed at scaring the others from trying to escape," he added.
Sak said such slave trade and forced labour was still practised in the South with assistance from corrupt officials. The trawler skippers also pay a monthly fee to the officials every month.
He said there were about 100 Thai men forced to work hard labour on many trawlers, and a large number were detained at brothels or karaoke bars where hostesses doubled as forced prostitutes. The crewmen are detained at these places until it was their turn to return to their vessels or until they had spent all their money.
"When the trawlers return to the shores, the crewmen are controlled or detained at several locations. They are later told to visit brothels, or brought to such places, where they can spend all the money on liquor and women, so they don't have any money left if they want to escape," said Sak, now 39, after spending 20 years as a slave labourer.
Sak said he was paid Bt500 a year. He said the biggest amount he got was Bt4,000 from a sympathetic trawler, which he spent at a brothel. Any leftover cash was seized by the skippers when he returned to his vessel.
Thailand is a country where human trafficking is still practised. Authorities have been blamed for giving little attention to the problem. Thailand has been ranked Tier 2 for three years running in a watchlist, and if it fails to get up to Tier 1 it may be slide down to Tier 4, which will affect the country's seafood exports.
Pavena said she believed that there were many trawlers who did not practise slave labour. She vowed to take drastic action against skippers found to have forced people to work on their vessels. http://www.nation...12364.html
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