The Guardian (UK) Reveales: how the Thai fishing industry traffics, imprisons and enslaves

The Thai fishing boats have been guilty of human trafficking for a number of years. This fact - although well-known for a number of years amongst the human rights groups - has only come to attention of broader spectrum of people in recent months after scores of dead bodies of enslaved Rohingya men and women and children were unearthed.


Rohingya migrants trafficked through deadly jungle camps have been sold to Thai fishing vessels as slaves to produce seafood sold across the world.


So profitable is the trade in slaves that some local fishermen in Thailand have been converting their boats to carry Rohingya migrants instead of fish.


Testimony from survivors, brokers and human rights groups indicate that hundreds of Rohingya men were sold from the network of trafficking camps recently discovered in southern Thailand.


According to those sold from the camps on to the boats, this was frequently done with the knowledge and complicity of some Thai state officials. In some cases, Rohingya migrants held in immigration detention centres in Thailand were taken by staff to brokers and then sold on to Thai fishing boats.


Other Rohingya migrants say Thai officials collected them from human traffickers when they arrived on the country’s shores and transported them to jungle camps where they were held to ransom or sold to fishing boats as slave labour.


In a recent article, the Guardian, UK, has uncovered extensive role of authorities, fishermen and traffickers in enslaving thousands of Rohingya, who were held in deadly jungle camps.


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