Trafficking in forced labour on the rise

June 22, 2011
ABC Radio Australia

This week, the Phnom Penh Post newspaper ran the story of seven Cambodian men who were trafficked to Malaysia and worked on a fishing boat in slave-like conditions.

Their passports were taken and they worked long hours in dangerous conditions.

One of the men later told a lawyer the boat owner would get drunk, make the men lie on the deck of the boat and would shoot at them for fun. If someone was shot, they'd be thrown in the water to drown.

While trafficking is often associated with women and forced prostitution it's estimated that for every person trafficked into prostitution, another nine are trafficked into forced labour.

Correspondent: Liam Cochrane

Speakers: Abid Gulzar, Regional Advocacy Program Manager with World Vision

COCHRANE: And what would you like to see done about it by governments in the region?

GULZAR: I think the most important thing which we felt that the GMS countries should be developing their legislation or amending the legislation according to the international standards and instruments which includes we cannot protection measures for the male victims of trafficking on commercial fishing boats and government should also undertake a comprehensive review and revisions of the law regulating fishing industry to ensure that workers on commercial fishing boats are provided with proper labour contracts, decent working conditions. And then we need to also push through the internal trafficking should also be part of their national plans because they only consider trafficking for sex is the most key form of trafficking whereas we have seen that hundreds of people who are trafficked into the worst form of labour conditions and many are also trafficked into private homes and there is a need to increase protection for those who are trafficking into these situations, especially access to justice and workers must be paid at least the national minimum wage. They must receive at least one day for rest and their freedom of movement shouldn't be actually curtailed, because many of the time employers create barriers for them to move around even, so their freedom of movement is not really given to them.

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GULZAR: After that typhoon, there was huge losses, something around 200 fishing boats were sunk and then there was a death of something around the 500 Thai fishermen. So that was the actual starting of a process where the local people abandoned this industry and there was shortage of workers and because of that shortage, then they have to find some other ways and the other alternative was the neighbouring countries where now there is less development and there are less development opportunities and livelihood opportunities. So they found themself easy to get some workers from Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. So actually the typhoon was the beginning of the biggest crisis in the industry.

COCHRANE: It's not just Thailand, Malaysia as well is another destination country for trafficed men, who are put to work on fishing boats. Can you tell us about the condition that these men face on the boats?

GULZAR: Conditions on the fishing boats are quite harsh and one of the biggest indicator we have found is long working hours. There are not given proper food, they are not given proper medical treatment if they're sick and they are sometimes they are drugged so that they can work longer hours and then torture is very much common so that they can keep control on the workers. So in otherwords, you can say the indicators are very similar to what is defined in slavery.

COCHRANE: And what's the scale of this? I mean obviously it's an illicit industry, so it's probably hard to get any accurate figures. But is there any estimate as to how many men from Cambodia, Laos and Burma are being trafficked into the fishing industry?

GULZAR: Well, it's pretty hard to answer this question, because number one, this issue is relatively new. If I correctly remember and then if you see also there's different reports. The emergence of this issue started in only 2007 and 2008, when people will start talking about fishing industry and access to fishing boat and the data available about the number is really difficult. What happens now, we have some stories coming through the media, which we have also documented a couple of stories and anything you need to know about labour trafficking which talks about the stories when workers jumped off the boat and then they were rescued by either another country's fishing boats or some of the officers. So those stories actually tell the realities, so in terms of the numbers it's still very hard to put exact numbers and figures.

COCHRANE: And one of those stories in the World Vision report describes a young Burmese man who was arrested with no documents by Thai police. He was actually handed over to a trafficking gang by the police according to the report. How common is this sort of involvement by police?

GULZAR: Well, I think it's the cross border sometime is the issue and there are some I think situations where you can find some cases. But most important thing which I would like to share is that the majority of the cases of victims of the trafficking into the fishing boats are they're migrating from their home countries willingly and they move across the border and they wanted to get into out of situations where they don't have livelihood and they wanted to go into to earn some money and that's where the brokers come in and they defeat them and they take them to places. Sometimes they promise that they will get some jobs in factories or may be even better job in industries, but they land on the fishing boats. So if you see that, the process started willingly, but end up and the result is exploitation.

COCHRANE: Is there a clear line between the official labour recruitments agencies that are springing up, certainly in Phnom Penh and I daresay elsewhere, a clear line between those official agencies and the illegal gangs or is it a bit of a grey area there?

GULZAR: That's true. I think according to the information we have, there were around 11 registered recruitment agencies in Cambodia in 2009, which jumped to 22 in 2010, so almost doubled in just one year. So there are a huge number, but they are huge many other actually brokers and unregistered recruitment agencies and which are also working and which no one has the exact number. But still it seems like those who are working illegally are more part of this whole trafficking situation.

COCHRANE: As I mentioned in the introduction, there is a difference in the way that this issue is handled as compared to the issue of women and girls being trafficked into prostitution. Are the men trafficking into the fishing industry, are they treated differently to trafficked women when they are rescued or when they manage to escape?

GULZAR: I think there are a couple of issues. One is the understanding of even the officers about the labour trafficking. What does it mean? Because many of them really do not consider those kind of cases as trafficking even and so they fall through the cracks and they are just deported or they are considered they are part of the exploitation there, because they also enter illegally, so they're considered illegal immigrants and sometimes if they enter legally, but their papers are confiscated by the employers and they cannot prove their identity or their legal status when they enter. So they are treated as illegal immigrants, so their understanding of their investigation officers or the officers who are responsible to identify victims is limited, that's why they are not identified.

On the other hand, many of the victims do not consider themself as victims of trafficking. They consider themselves as migrants who had ill fortune or may be they call it unlucky migration, so they have limited understanding that it's a violation of their basic right, so that is a difference of the two perspectives.