Regional News
Myanmar Shrimping Slaves Wait for Thai Justice While Former Employers are Free on Bail
Shrimp shed worker Tin Nyo Win and his wife Mi San, stand in a jail cell after they were arrested in Samut Sakhon in November last year. (AP Photo)
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PATHUM THANI -Â Nearly eight months ago, migrant worker Tin Nyo Win thought he was doing the right thing — the only thing — to help free his pregnant wife from slavery inside a shrimp peeling shed.
He ran for help and prompted police to raid the business, freeing nearly 100 Burmese labourers, including children.
Yet the couple first ended up in jail and then held inside a Thai government shelter, even though they were victims of trafficking. That’s where they remain today with a few other workers from the Gig Peeling Factory, waiting to testify in a slow-moving court case while their former employers are free on bail. Angry and frustrated, they just want to go home.
“I feel like I’ve been victimised three times. Once in the shrimp shed, the second time in … jail and now again in the shelter,” Tin Nyo Win said on a mobile phone smuggled in by another Myanmar worker.
“Even prisoners know how many years or months they will be in prison, but we don’t know anything about how many years or months we’ll be stuck here. It’s worse than prison.”
Burmese former shrimp shed worker Tin Nyo Win, right, sits with his wife, Mi San, during an interview in Patum Thani, Thailand.
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On Thursday, Thailand was lifted off the US State Department’s Tier 3 blacklist, where it had languished for the past two years as one of the world’s worst human trafficking offenders alongside North Korea, Syria, Iran and others. Some activists saw the upgrade as a political move by Washington to appease an ally, and 21 labour, anti-trafficking and environmental groups expressed their disappointment in an open letter to Secretary of State John Kerry.
The government lobbied hard ahead of the announcement, saying new laws had been passed to help protect victims. It also said that 241 human traffickers were sentenced in 2015, and 34 officials are facing prosecution for involvement or complicity in the trade.
But critics say low-level people or brokers from other countries are typically the ones jailed instead of Thai business owners, corrupt police or high-ranking officials.
“Debt bondage for migrants is still the norm, and police abuse and extortion happens on a daily basis all over the country,” said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch in Bangkok. “While it’s good that prosecutions are going up, the reality is that we’re still talking about the tip of the iceberg here.”
The country has been under international pressure to clean up its $7-billion annual seafood export industry, including the threat of a seafood import ban from the European Union. An Associated Press investigation last year uncovered a slave island with migrant fishermen locked in a cage and buried under fake Thai names.
The reporting, which led to more than 2,000 men being freed, followed the slave-caught seafood to Thailand and on to American dinner tables.
Burmese worker Tin Nyo Win smiles after he was reunited with his wife, Mi San, during a raid of a shrimp-peeling shed in Samut Sakhon on Nov. 9, 2015.
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The investigation also focused on the Gig Peeling shed in Samut Sakhon, just south of Bangkok, where Tin Nyo Win and his wife, Mi San, were forced to work 16 hours a day. They had to rip the guts, heads and tails off shrimp that entered supply chains feeding some of America’s biggest companies, including Red Lobster, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart and most major US supermarkets. Many companies have said they are taking steps to prevent labour abuses.
Col Prasert Siriphanapitat, the Samut Sakhon deputy police commander, said witness testimony began in April in the Gig shed case against three Thai defendants and two Myanmar brokers. Only one Myanmar suspect has been located.
He added that new laws mandate quick prosecution of human trafficking, meaning the Gig case will likely be closed by the end of the year. But Tin Nyo Win said he and his wife have not spoken to a prosecutor or been informed about the case’s progress.
Suwalee Jaiharn, director of the country’s Anti-Trafficking in Persons division, said Thailand’s eight shelters are there to protect undocumented workers and denied that those housed inside are prohibited from leaving. She added, however, that some victims of trafficking are more closely monitored if they are expected to testify in criminal cases.
“We are protection centres and not detention centres,” she said. “There is an exception when some victims are witnesses in human trafficking cases. We have to give them extra protection.”
Suwalee said Thailand’s laws allow victims to testify ahead of their trials so they can go home quickly, or stay and work in the country. But aid workers said these options are rarely made available to migrant workers, leaving victims to wait in facilities far from home.
Children and teenagers sit together to be registered by officials during a raid on a shrimp shed in Samut Sakhon, Thailand. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
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“Somebody’s always ordering you, and you are always under watch by someone and having to get permission all the time. This is totally what trafficking victims would have gone through while they were being trafficked,” said Ohnmar Ei Ei Chaw, senior case adviser at the Bangkok-based nonprofit Project Issara, which assists trafficking victims. “It is very difficult for them to feel empowered and like their needs are being met.”
For the first few months that Tin Nyo Win and Mi San were in the shelter, they said they were not allowed to have a phone. They couldn’t leave the shelter unaccompanied. They couldn’t work.
“If victims see that when they come forward they are kept in government shelters but not given freedom to work and move around, then what incentive do they have to come forward?” said Susan Coppedge, the US anti-trafficking ambassador.
Following a supervised interview with AP at the shelter last week, Tin Nyo Win spoke candidly on a call. He said restrictions eased a couple of months ago, and victims can now have a phone and go outside the compound unsupervised.
However, only eight people from the Gig case are still in the shelter, after 12 undocumented workers ran away. Those who remain worry they will never be compensated for unpaid wages and the abuses they suffered.
“My sister is in another shelter. She is 17 years old, and we have no chance to see each other. I’ve asked permission to see her many times, but I’m not allowed,” said Hkin Tet Mun, 31, adding that phone calls to her sibling are also prohibited. “I’m worried about her, and my sister wants to stay with me.”
Win Kai, 19, said he’s also desperate to leave, but feels trapped.
“My family is so worried about me,” he said by phone. “I don’t want to stay in the shelter. Can you help me quickly?”
Tin Nyo Win’s wife, now seven months pregnant, rubs the growing bump under her bright flowered shirt. She yearns to have the baby at home, where she can be with her sick mother. But her husband says he won’t go — even if it means missing the birth of his child.
“We want to show the boss that we are really victims, and we want to show this to the court,” he said. “We want to see justice carried out.”
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