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Half-Grown Boys, Full-Time Slaves Harvest Your Fish
Since most victims of human trafficking around the world are female, it's often thought of as a women's issue. But modern-day slavery is very real and terribly common for men and boys in some parts of the world and in certain industries. And one of those industries is the fishing industry in Thailand and Malaysia, where young boys are enslaved by the thousands on fishing boats.For these boys, slavery often starts the way it does for girls and women — with the offer of a job. A broker will convince teen boys from Cambodia, Malaysia, rural parts of Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries to travel to port cities for a job. Once there, the boys are locked up and auctioned off to boat captains. Because of overfishing near the Thai coast, these boats often go into open water for years at a time, sometimes only docking with a mother ship to drop off their haul and never returning to dry land. This leaves very little opportunity to escape, out on the open water.
Trafficked boys on fishing boats have reported getting as little as 2-3 hours of sleep a night, and have been beaten and drugged to keep them working around the clock. Some have claimed that boys or men who fell seriously ill were simply thrown overboard at sea. And none of them report being paid for their work. This sort of slavery in the Thai and Malaysian fishing industries is by no means new. In fact, in Thailand, the fishing industry has become so synonymous with slavery, that traffickers are now forced to lie about the sort of work people will be doing; everyone knows not to take a fishing boat job.
And what's happening to all this fish, which is depleting the Thai coast with overfishing and enslaving so many young boys in its production? Some of it is being eaten by Thais and Malaysians, but a whole lot of it is being exported, especially frozen and in cans, to the U.S. Thailand is the world's leading exporterof shrimp, and millions of pounds of it end up in American supermarkets. There is also a good chance that the frozen fish sticks in your freezer or the canned tuna in your pantry came from Thailand as well. Even those tuna tidbits processed into Fluffy's catfood might be Thai.
Check out where your seafood comes from. If your local grocery store sells shrimp or fish from Thailand, tell them about why you're concerned with buying Thai seafood. A reduction in American consumption of Thai seafood might not only reduce the overfishing there, but also reduce the demand for the slave labor of young boys on the fishing boats.
Photo credit: joiseyshowaa
Amanda Kloer is a Change.org Editor and has been a full-time abolitionist in several capacities for seven years. Follow her on Twitter @endhumantraffic
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