but instead they were forced to work on Thai fishing boats.
Each year, hundreds of Cambodian men, many impoverished farmers, are
lured from their homes with the promise of better-paying jobs in
Thailand, only to find themselves on Thai fishing boats plying the
waters of the South China Sea.
"We were told we would earn good money," Taing Ky, 37, a
father-of-five from Cambodia's Kampot Province, about 200km southwest
of Phnom Penh, told IRIN. After six months, they managed to escape
while the boat was offloading on Benjina island in northern Indonesia.
There they were picked up by local authorities.
Thousands of Cambodian men are now believed to be working against
their will in exploitative working conditions on long-haul trawlers
well beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies, and often alongside
Burmese men.
"It's slavery. There's no other way to describe it," Lim Tith,
national project coordinator for the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human
Trafficking (UNIAP), told IRIN.
Thousands exploited
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), about
125,000 Cambodians are registered as working legally in Thailand,
including more than 25,000 in the fishing sector.
But with formal migration costs becoming prohibitive and limited
economic opportunities for Cambodians at home, it is widely believed
the number of undocumented Cambodians in Thailand is significantly
higher; many are trafficked.
Of the 89,096 Cambodians deported from Thailand in 2009 for illegal
migration, more than 20,000 (23 percent) were reportedly trafficked,
according to a 2010 UNIAP Human Trafficking Sentinel Surveillance.
And while about 31 percent of Cambodian fishermen deported from
Thailand reported being trafficked, those on fishing boats far from
Thai shores for up to a year at a time are more difficult to track and
regularly drop off the radar.
"This is a big problem, but the cases we actually receive are really
just the tip of the iceberg," said Lim Tith. "The true number of men
being trafficked in this manner is much higher."
In addition, the problem appears to be shifting from Malaysia to
Indonesian waters, where more and more men are now being reported, 25
this year alone, he said.
Traumatized
Those lucky enough to escape report 20-hour work days, food
deprivation, regular beatings and threats at the hands of the crew,
many of whom are armed.
"The captain had a gun. We had no choice but to work," said one survivor.
So bad are conditions that those deemed expendable are tossed overboard.
"Many of these men have been badly traumatized by what's happened to
them," Mom Sok Char, programme manager for Legal Support for Children
and Women (LSCW), a local NGO and one of the first to monitor the
trafficking of men, explained. "After months of forced labour, that's
understandable."
Culturally, most men do not seek psychological support, he said,
making follow-up and adjustment back into the community particularly
difficult.
"More and more men are falling victim and this is a genuine concern of
the Cambodian government," San Arun, chairwoman of the Cambodian
Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT)
taskforce, agreed. "It's not just women and children any more," she
said, calling for greater regional cooperation on trafficking.
Thai action urged
Earlier this month, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in
Persons, Especially Women and Children, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, called on
the Thai government to "do more to combat human trafficking
effectively and protect the rights of migrant workers who are
increasingly vulnerable to forced and exploitative labour.
"Thailand faces significant challenges as a source, transit and
destination country," said the UN expert at the end of her 12-day
mission to the country.
"The trend of trafficking for forced labour is growing in scale in the
agricultural, construction and fishing industries," she said.
While commending the Thai government with the enactment of the
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2008, she warned that the
implementation and enforcement of the law remained "weak and
fragmented", often hampered by corruption, especially among low-cadre
law enforcement officers at provincial and local levels.
"Thailand must do more to combat human trafficking effectively,"
Ezeilo concluded.
Thai authorities say there is little they can do about the trafficked
Cambodians working on Thai fishing boats, particularly when the
alleged crimes occurred outside Thai waters, if they do not report it.
According to UNIAP, most of the deportees who were exploited choose
not to report their cases due to fear of their broker, employer, or
the police; a lack of understanding of their rights; and/or inability
to speak Thai.
Source :
PHNOM PENH,
29 August 2011 (IRIN)
http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=93606
