Thread: Traffickers Use Abductions, Prison Ships To Feed Asian Slave Trade

Reuters
October 22, 2014
By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Andrew R.C. Marshall

When Afsar Miae left his home near Teknaf in southern Bangladesh to look for work last month, he told his mother, "I'll see you soon." He said he expected to return that evening.

He never did.

When he reported for work at a house on the outskirts of Teknaf, a man there gave him a drink of water. Soon, his eyelids sagged and his head started spinning. When he awoke, it was dark. He had lost all sense of time. Two Bangladeshi men then forced him and seven others onto a small boat and bound them. "My hands were tied. My eyes were blindfolded," said Miae, 20.

The boat sailed through the night until it reached a larger ship moored far offshore. Miae was thrown into its dark, crowded hold by armed guards. He and his fellow captives survived on scraps of food and dirty water, some of them for weeks.

The ship eventually sailed toward Thailand where, as Reuters reported last year, human-trafficking gangs hold thousands of boat people in brutal jungle camps until relatives pay ransoms to secure their release.

Testimonies from Bangladeshi and Rohingya survivors provide evidence of a shift in tactics in one of Asia’s busiest human-trafficking routes. In the past, evidence showed most people boarded smuggling boats voluntarily. Now people are being abducted or tricked and then taken to larger ships anchored in international waters just outside Bangladesh’s maritime boundary.

It’s unclear exactly how many people are being coerced onto the boats. But seven men interviewed by Reuters who said they were taken by force described being held until the boats filled up with hundreds of people in what are effectively floating prisons. Two of the men were taken to trafficking camps in Thailand.

The experiences of these men recall the trans-Atlantic slave trade of centuries ago. Miae and four other men who were held on the same ship as him described being kept in near total darkness and being regularly whipped by guards. Two men from another boat said they were forced to sit in a squatting position and that the hatch to the hold was only opened to remove dead bodies.

Miae and 80 other men were abandoned, starving and dehydrated, on a remote island by their captors, who appear to have fled for fear their operation had been exposed, according to two local Thai officials who were involved in rescuing the men in Phang Nga, located just north of the popular tourist island of Phuket.

"Their conditions were beyond what a human should have to go through," said Jadsada Thitimuta, an official in Phang Nga. "Some were sick and many were like skeletons. They were eating leaves."

Evidence indicates that many of the boats appear to be from Thailand. The abducted men recalled ships with either Thai flags or Thai-speaking crews. In June, six people were killed and dozens injured when a mutiny broke out in Bangladeshi waters on what the Bangladesh Coast Guard described as a “Thai trawler” trafficking hundreds of men to Thailand.

Full article: Special Report: Traffickers use abductions, prison ships to feed Asian slave trade | Reuters

The increase in reported incidents in Thailand is going to do them a lot of harm, there tier 3 status is going to get them into a lot of trouble, looks like the media are just warming up.

Isn't this the kind of report that got that Phuketwan reporter sued for defamation by the Royal Thai Navy?

^
That thought occurred to me so I checked what I posted. The excerpt in the OP mentions that the ships and crews could be Thai. The implication that certain armed forces were participants that got Phuketwan in trouble is not in this excerpt, or the full article. There is mention of them in the full article, but they are not implicated as participants, so I think we're okay.

Originally Posted by Sumocakewalk

^
That thought occurred to me so I checked what I posted. The excerpt in the OP mentions that the ships and crews could be Thai. The implication that certain armed forces were participants that got Phuketwan in trouble is not in this excerpt, or the full article. There is mention of them in the full article, but they are not implicated as participants, so I think we're okay.

Excuse me, but you can send Allen Morrison and hius entire crew out to sea in a rowboat without oars...He should have realized the Thai Navy would go after the stupid minnow, little piss ant. They would not even think of going after the big fish...They would lose toooo much FACE...which I feel has melted of the front of their heads...

Rape, ransom, kidnapping, murder. Must be like the good ole' days for some in the south- the Vietnamese boat people.

Bangaladeshi tricksters smuggled and trafficked into Thailand with promises of living a better life in Australia.

Wasn't phuketwan one of various sources that reported such a story,though only them who are getting sued.?

Originally Posted by CSFFan

Isn't this the kind of report that got that Phuketwan reporter sued for defamation by the Royal Thai Navy?