The Thai government says it has detected and prosecuted 503 cases of labor rights violations and 87 cases of human trafficking in its fisheries sector since the beginning of 2015, accounting for 11% of all the inspections carried out on vessels and in seafood processing establishments. The numbers are part of a response provided to the group Human Rights Watch as Thailand continues to work to get out from under the cloud of a threat by the European Union, in 2015, to ban all seafood imports from the country. The advocacy group, based in New York City, had suggested Thailand needed to backup its words with more action.
As a result of the efforts, the overall situation of workers in the fisheries sector of Thailand over the past three years has drastically improved, the letter says. Nevertheless, the Thai government continues to pay close attention and try its utmost to increase the effectiveness of enforcement of those measures to ensure that workers in the fisheries sector receive full legal rights and protections. Thailand recounts how it has recently established special arrest teams for fishing-related crimes at sea, which it says resulted in 50 cases of arrests between March 11 and March 22. The cases involved both Thai and non-Thai vessels, according to the letter.
Additionally, the country’s Ministry of Labor has worked with the International Labor Organization to develop a manual for labor inspections at sea, ports and seafood processing establishments. The government has promised to double the number of inspectors at its port-in port-out (PIPO) centers, while continuing to use new retinal scanning technology and increased inspections of employment documents. From 46,269 migrant workers in the fisheries sector interviewed at the PIPO Centers in 22 coastal provinces in 2016, 3,222 workers were found to not have been treated in accordance with the labour protection law and legal actions were taken against the employers, the government says.