The seafood industry in Thailand, the world's largest producer of canned tuna, is one of the largest and most devastating in the world. An enterprise that has done as much damage to the sea as to its workers.
After four decades of illegal fishing in the 20th century, boats and ships, in the midst of the 21st century, have had to travel further and further from their shores. In the process, thousands of Thai fishermen refused to continue to endure labor abuses and to spend months cooped up in the boats. Thus, the owners of these industries opted to use the labor of Southeast Asian migrants and began to enslave them on the high seas.
With promises of good salaries —or directly taking them by force—, once they are inside the ships, they take away their documents and leave them working forcedly in long hours, without cabins, without industrial security, with stops in illegal ports so that they can't leave and sometimes without payment.
Patima Tungpuchayakul, with her foundation Labour Protection Network, joined other global organizations and has led a human rights movement that not only helps rescue and return many of these fishermen to their homes, but has made contemporary slavery in different industries visible.
With dangerous trips to the sea, Patima has given herself to a literally titanic cause. Fifteen years ago, she began her struggle for a dignified working life in her country. It was from 2013 that she got fully into the issue of slavery at sea, tracking ships and rescuing people from what she calls "their cages".
Thanks to this humanitarian work, in 2017 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. And although she did not receive the award, her work managed to go around the world and she has received acknowledgement from various organizations. Two years earlier, her foundation's work was part of the journalistic content series Seafood from Slaves, which earned the Associated Press a Pulitzer Prize in 2016.
By that time, footage was already being shot for what became the documentary Ghost Fleet, directed by Shannon Service and Jeffrey Waldron, of which she is the protagonist. The film summarizes, in an hour and a half, the work of a decade of activism and four years of filming. Castaways who jumped into the sea to escape labor kidnapping, fatal accidents using machines that wipe out all marine life, cages for humans, whippings, forced fasting, mutilations, starvation, men bleeding to death, corpses thrown into the ocean, cemeteries full of nameless graves, politicians promising that everything will change… and in the end, diners who continue eating fish without caring about its origin. The story goes beyond one of those documentaries that, according to social networks, "you can't miss".
Patima Tungpuchayakul was in Colombia. She always smiles and looks into the eyes of her interlocutor. She is small. She has a spot on her face. She brings with her the honesty of someone who has seen all kinds of suffering. A woman with a sincere and modest look that overcomes any vanity.
At what point did you discover the crimes of the fishing industry?
We were working with a migrant child who had been locked up in a factory that processed food, and he told us that his father had been sold to a fishing vessel. Until then, for ten years we had been working on land, rescuing children from factories; starting in 2013 we learned about slavery on ships first-hand and looked for a way to track those ships and get on them to get people out of their cages. We first found more than two thousand sailors in Thailand and then expanded our network to the most remote islands of Indonesia and ten other countries to rescue, so far, more than five thousand fishermen in different waters of Southeast Asia.
When was your foundation born?
I survived cancer when I was 22 years old and started collaborating with organizations fighting human trafficking. Fifteen years ago I decided to work on my own to protect labor rights. Many workers in Thailand were mistreated and cheated, even having their money taken from them with the excuse of giving them a job, especially migrants from Thailand's neighboring countries, such as Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia or Laos. With my husband, we created this foundation (Labour Protection Network - LPN) to take action against these problems.
How has this activism affected your personal life?
I'm fortunate that my husband also works with me, so we understand each other and complement each other. My parents have always supported me and even think that the best work you can do is to help other people. Also, activism has allowed me to make many friends. In fact, some of the rescued men come back after a while to help our foundation or work with us when we are in trouble. The most valuable thing has been my son: a migrant woman who could not take care of him left him in my office when he was three days old and I immediately adopted him.
You carry a chain with an amulet on your chest, what does it mean?
It is Luang Pu Thuat, a Buddhist monk well known in southern Thailand because he protects people while they work at sea. Many of the men we have rescued believe it was this amulet that helped them survive. [Smiles timidly]. A couple of years ago I started wearing it, I feel it gives me strength.
What is the next step for a man after so many years of forced labor?
It's a complex question because with thousands of people enslaved, there are thousands of cases to be solved. It's very difficult to know the exact number of victims, and the saddest thing is that the number of survivors is much smaller than those who die in the ocean without a trace of their disappearance. The reality is too cruel: some fishermen have been away from home for more than twenty years, practically kidnapped on ships. Many men who have been rescued return to Thailand or their home countries after a long and complicated bureaucratic process, almost as if they were the criminals. The first thing we try to do with them is to take them to shelters to talk about their traumas and remember their lives as they were before they left with the fishing industry. There they stay in groups of three men maximum, to make sure they are comfortable and that we can listen to them, but we don't have much space or time to work on their return to freedom.
And what happens to their lives after they return?
We currently have several rescued fishermen volunteering at the shelter, who are key to getting the new arrivals to dare to share their story and support each other. It's very difficult to make them aware, especially the migrants, that they can do something better than fishing for sixteen hours a day. Some already have new families in other countries and want to return to their vessels regardless of labor abuses. For some families, a free man means one more mouth to feed, and those rescued become a burden. Poverty is huge and capitalism takes advantage of these needs.
What are the shelters like?
Officially we are just finishing one and so far we have been working with people who provide their homes temporarily. The Thai government does not offer any program to treat these people, so at LPN we decided to make our own shelter, on a piece of land that my mother donated to the foundation and that was built with support from the Japanese government. We're about to open it, but we don't have many resources to keep it alive. Any help is welcome because we don't even have doctors to take care of the rescued people.
What kind of care do these people need?
There are mutilated people, men who have lost an eye, their fingers… They carry very big traumas, they have been victims of mistreatment, they have slept in cages for years, they have seen their partners die. Many have spent nine years on fishing vessels, some have spent twelve… even twenty-four years! These are people who have no place to go, who no longer know anything about their families, so this shelter is their only option. The new space will not only work for fishermen, but also for other migrant workers, for women or for homeless Thais who need to start a new life.
By the way, how is LPN funded?
Various people and agencies collaborate with us. There are even groups of migrants who help their fellow migrants: they donate some money, sometimes they give their labor or objects they can provide. We may have a small budget, but we believe we will continue for a long time because the same people we rescue feel a responsibility to help solve the problems of other migrants.
What is the environmental impact of illegal fishing?
The direct damage does not only apply to illegal fishing. First, the tools used in legal fishing are also devastating. Second, there's no limit to the number of fishing vessels and no set seasons for fishing, and that is going to deplete the planet's resources sooner or later. Third, the people forced to work, obeying the captain, are slaves who do not know what their machines are doing.
What solutions do you think we have at hand?
If we want to solve the problem, we have to control the number of boats and explain to the fishermen that what they are doing is going to destroy the environment. We have received information about Asian boats fishing in Somalia, in East Africa. Because we don't have a defined number of vessels, we do not know for sure if a Thai vessel is fishing in Colombian waters, even with the Colombian flag to distract the authorities. We already know there are fish species that are in danger of extinction, so there should be a global law to control fishing, its areas and equipment. That, by the way, would help to know if there is slavery in the business.
How much are the governments of the region helping LPN?
The Indonesian government, thanks to Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, started to care a lot about the environment and has collaborated with LPN against human trafficking. When we go to the ships, we are only interested in helping people, and we coordinate with Myanmar, Laos or Cambodia to issue passports and allow all those rescued to return to their home countries. However, for more than a decade, they have turned their back on organizations like ours and no one has helped us, some said not to worry, that this is normal.
What does the legislation say to control illegal fishing?
Thailand implemented strict laws from 2015. Until then, about 10% of the boats were legal and, with the new regulations, the illegal ones changed their flag to those of other countries that still do not have clear legislation. In recent years, for example, there are lots and lots of Myanmar boats selling fish in Thailand, when three or four years ago there were not even fisheries there.
So it's not a matter of writing it down on paper and that's it?
Of course. We have good laws, but we're dealing with a business that has existed for half a century, which for many is already normal, even for the authorities. The basic problem is to enforce the laws. I trust the checkpoints in Thailand, but a lot of the laws won't apply to foreign-flagged vessels. Also, we need to find a way for fishermen to participate in the discussions, to tell their stories so that they are not repeated, so that they can report abuses.
How is it possible that these acts continue happening?
Between the ignorance of the people and the corruption of the authorities and governments, the entire fishing industry has been involved in human trafficking. This is not a socially bad business. On the contrary, the business is to fish as much as possible, and some government representatives benefit from that and even boast about it. They cut costs by making ships cheaper, but going so far as to make the price of human labor zero, by kidnapping people for higher profits. So as long as there is demand for fish and lack of regulations, this is not going to stop.
How has social media helped you do your work?
Very much so. [At that moment, Patima picks up her cell phone and looks for a video in the archive, a young man standing in front of the camera, his voice cracking as he begins to speak]. This man from Laos was taken on a boat when he was twelve years old and was enslaved for seven years; as soon as we rescued him, we uploaded the video to Facebook to look for his family, and immediately someone saw it and sent a video of his mother in response, when we hadn't even reached the mainland. Sometimes we ask the captains of the boats that transport us to help us find a spot with an internet signal so that we can disseminate the fishermen's videos and facilitate their return to their families. Without social media, this would be much more difficult.
How much did the documentary Ghost Fleet help LPN's work?
The best thing about the documentary is that the voices of the fishermen who had been enslaved were heard. For more than ten years I tried to make my work known, to explain what was happening in businesses like the fishing industry in Southeast Asia, to make these people visible. Nobody understood or wanted to help. With the film we showed people the origin of the fish they eat and, thus, many understood that we have to take action.
And what kind of actions can ordinary citizens take?
From the moment we go shopping we can ask where the food comes from and make sure that something was not caught or farmed by a slave. How can we know? Everything should be traceable and there should be transparency in the supply chain, something that doesn't exist today. But we can push for that to be made clear and mandatory.
After being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, what's next in your work as an activist?
We have to continue to raise awareness around the world about the quality of life of workers like those in the fishing industry. No one is worth less than anyone else, no labor is cheaper than any other. Right now, a fish is worth more than a fisherman: a fish may be worth two dollars, but the fisherman is paid nothing. I want to inspire young people about the beauty of helping others. If I can do that, I will have succeeded.
What threats have you received for doing your job?
Every now and then we feel intimidated. Once, on an island in Indonesia, the mafia came armed to question our work. I told them we were rescuing people, showed them some of what the media had published about my work, and they let us go. But when we got back to Thailand we started getting calls asking for details of what we do; every now and then people would pass by on the street to take pictures of our foundation. We know that there are many people who don't like our work.
And what are you afraid of?
[Laughs]. I'm not really afraid of anything.
Note: This interview would not have been possible without the translation by journalist and activist Chutima "Oi" Sidasathian, who has worked to bring Patima Tungpuchayakul's work to the world. If you would like to support Labour Protection Network, please visit www.lpnfoundation.org.
This article was originally published in Spanish in Revista Bocas, of El Tiempo, in October 2019.
