Thailand Banks on Tech to End Slavery at Sea.

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Thailand Banks on Tech to End Slavery at Sea.

Post by Kung-fu Hillbilly »

Image

Reuters
June 26, 2018

SAMUT SAKHON/BANGKOK, THAILAND — Enslaved on a Thai fishing vessel for 11 years, Tun Lin saw his fellow workers lose their minds one after another, with one fisherman jumping into the sea to end his
life

The 36-year-old, who was rescued in 2015 after losing four fingers and being stranded on a remote island for years without pay, is now lobbying for fishermen's rights with the Thai and Migrant Fishers Union Group (TMFG).

More than half the estimated 600,000 industry workers are migrants, often from poor neighboring countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar, United Nations (U.N.) data shows.

Under growing consumer pressure, Thailand has introduced a raft of modern technologies since 2015 - from satellites to optical scanning and electronic payment services - to crack down on abuses in its multibillion-dollar fishing industry.

Full https://www.voanews.com/a/thailand-bank ... 56377.html
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Re: Thailand Banks on Tech to End Slavery at Sea.

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

And so it goes on. Long read.

August 30, 2019 / 2:07 AM / 2 days ago
New rules, new debts: slavery fears rise for migrant workers in Thailand
Matt Blomberg, Nanchanok Wongsamuth
PHNOM PENH/RAYONG, Thailand, August 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Leng Lyda swapped Cambodia for a fishing town in Thailand hoping to find a job in the seafood industry, he was ready for hard work. But he wasn’t prepared for the delay, or the debt.

The 22-year-old landed a job as soon as he arrived earlier this year, but without the right to work, he spent three months living rough on the docks and racking up debts while his employer processed the papers to hire him as a migrant worker.

“All I can do is wait,” Lyda said, sitting in a ramshackle cafe as Cambodians dragged giant nets onto trawlers behind him.

“After, I have no choice but to work for him until I repay the debt,” he said, explaining that he would start his job owing at least 30,000 Thai baht ($980) to his employer due to the registration fee and other expenses. “My fate is in his hands.”

Millions of migrant workers from Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos toil in Thailand’s low-skilled sectors, where limited state oversight and unscrupulous employment practices leave many vulnerable to exploitation and modern slavery, activists say.

The Southeast Asian nation last year launched an overhaul of the registration process for migrant workers, granting them the same labor rights as local hires, including access to free healthcare, pension contributions and child allowances.

In the first phase of the revamp, the government aims to ensure two million legitimate migrant workers are registered afresh - a process that must be carried out by employers but paid for by workers earning as little as 10,000 baht a month.

Visas, work permits and health checks - the conditions of the new agreement - cost a total of about 6,700 baht.

However migrants and labor activists said that employers, middlemen and brokers are inflating the cost and saddling workers with fresh debts - trapping many in exploitative workplaces as they struggle to pay off what they owe.

Debt bondage is one of the world’s most prevalent forms of modern slavery, which affects 610,000 people in Thailand, shows the Global Slavery Index by rights group Walk Free Foundation.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thai ... SKCN1VK006
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Re: Thailand Banks on Tech to End Slavery at Sea.

Post by yong »

So sad this land of Buddhism that I live still practice cruel slavery.
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Re: Thailand Banks on Tech to End Slavery at Sea.

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Tue, Oct 15, 2019
Titans of Thai fishing industry collaborate to tackle slavery
By Nanchanok Wongsamuth / Thomson Reuters Foundation, SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand

Zin Mar was a housewife in Bago, Myanmar, when she saw an advertisement for a job at Thai Union Group, a global seafood supplier and the world’s biggest producer of tuna.

The 44-year-old paid a local recruitment agency about 4,300 Thai baht (US$142) — less than half the sum that most migrants from Myanmar pay to win work in neighboring Thailand.

Zin Mar is among the 23,000 Burmese workers Thai Union employed under what the company calls its ethical migrant recruitment policy.

Three in four of its workers are migrants in a company that operates in 13 nations and is considered a leader in efforts to clean up an industry that was rife with worker abuse.

Four years after the Thai seafood industry came under fire for its work practices, the government and private sector have introduced a raft of measures — from worker contracts to tighter laws — to clean up the multibillion-dollar sector.

Thai Union was among the first to react, though campaigners say smaller firms have copied its lead and the pace of reform must continue if the industry is to ward off bad practice.

The industry was badly in need of a cleanup.

It was in 2014 accused of widespread slavery, trafficking, and violence on fishing boats and in processing factories.

Thai Union in 2016 was among the first in the $6.6 billion industry to adopt an ethical recruitment policy, with help from the Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN), a Thai non-profit assisting migrant workers, to reduce worker debt.

Debt bondage is one of the world’s most prevalent forms of modern slavery, affecting 610,000 people in Thailand, according to the Global Slavery Index by rights group Walk Free Foundation.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editori ... 2003723948
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Re: Thailand Banks on Tech to End Slavery at Sea.

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Even when they get rescued, the victims are still losing out, according to this report:

October 15, 2019 / 2:33 AM / Updated 16 hours ago
Exclusive: Thailand's human traffickers flout 99% of court orders to compensate victims
Nanchanok Wongsamuth

7 Min Read

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Human traffickers in Thailand have ignored court orders to compensate victims in more than 99% of cases in recent years, fuelling fears that many survivors could be re-trafficked, data obtained exclusively by the Thomson Reuters Foundation revealed.

Thai courts have ordered traffickers to pay their victims more than 130 million baht ($4.3 million) for damages caused in about 1,335 cases since 2014, according to the latest available statistics from the Office of the Attorney General.

But the money was only paid in five cases, with survivors receiving a total of 5.6 million baht - excluding cases settled out of court - found data from the government’s anti-trafficking department, obtained via Thailand’s freedom of information law.

Although Thailand has rescued a record-breaking 1,000-plus trafficking victims this year, campaigners are concerned that the failure to pay compensation will leave them in fresh danger.

“It’s an important issue that is unfortunately being neglected,” said Chonticha Tangworamongkon, a program director at the Human Rights and Development Foundation, which provides free legal aid to migrant workers and trafficking victims.

“This money will enable (victims) to start a new life and prevent them from being re-trafficked, but the government’s role in assisting victims in pursuing the claims is still not clear.”

Thailand is considering amending its 1999 anti-money laundering law to allow offenders’ assets seized by the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) to be used to compensate victims.
Full article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thai ... SKBN1WU00P
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