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.
Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)
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.
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