After the publication of a new report on human trafficking, labor abuse and murder in the Thai fish industry on Wednesday, IntraFish talked to Environmental Justice Foundation's (EJF's) lead oceans campaigner Andy Hickman, the main investigator on the report.
The details of human rights abuses are sickening, to say the least. “The Thai Department of Special Investigation invited EJF to document their investigation, which happened in March this year,” Hickman said.
Fifteen Burmese workers between the ages of 16 to 46 -- who had been working on three separate fishing vessels -- had been subjected to “significant abuse, bonded labor, 20 hours working day without pay, and been at sea for five months at a time.”
Two of them had witnessed the murder of seven fellow Burmese workers by senior crew members, either when they had tried to escape or hadn’t followed orders.
The workers who ended up getting rescued could only do so by selling dried squid to a transfer vessel, which in...
