US lets in Thai fish caught by slaves despite law

WASHINGTON — Fourteen years after the United States first criticised Thailand for labour abuse in its annual trafficking report, seafood caught by slaves on Thai boats is still slipping into the supply chains of major American stores and supermarkets.

The US has not enforced its own law banning the import of goods made with forced labour since 2000 because of significant loopholes, The Associated Press (AP) has found. It has also spared Thailand from sanctions slapped on other countries with similar records because of a complex political relationship that includes cooperation against terrorism.

The question of how to deal with Thailand and labour abuse will come up at a congressional hearing today (April 22), in light of an AP investigation that found hundreds of men beaten, starved, forced to work with little or no pay and even held in a cage on the remote Indonesian island village of Benjina. The captains on most of the boats based on the island are Thai. While officials at federal agencies would not directly answer why the law and sanctions are not applied, they pointed out that the US State Department last year blacklisted Thailand as among the worst offenders in its report on trafficking in people worldwide.

“No one can claim ignorance anymore,” said deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division Phil Robertson. “This is a test case for Washington as much as Bangkok.”

Mr Hlaing Min, an escaped migrant fisherman, begged the US for help.

“Basically, we are slaves — and slavery is the only word that I can find — but our condition is worse than slavery,” he said. “On behalf of all the fishermen here, I request to the congressmen that the US stop buying all fish from Thailand. ... This fish, we caught it with our blood and sweat, but we don’t get a single benefit from it.”

While US seafood companies strongly condemn labour abuse, some say cutting off all imports from an entire country takes away their power to change anything and the Thai government says it is taking steps to solve the problem, including the creation of a new registry for migrant workers and increased punishment for traffickers.

The US Tariff Act of 1930 gives Customs and Border Protection the authority to seize shipments where forced labour is suspected and block further imports. However, it has been used only 39 times in 85 years. In 11 cases, the orders detaining shipments were later revoked.

The most recent case dates back to 2000, when Customs stopped clothing from a Mongolian firm. The order was revoked in 2001, after further review found labour abuse was no longer a problem at the company.

To start an investigation, Customs needs to receive a petition from anyone — a business, an agency, even a non-citizen — showing “reasonably but not conclusively” that imports were made at least in part with forced labour. But spokesman Michael Friel said that in the last four years, Customs has received “only a handful of petitions”, and none on seafood from Thailand.

Experts also point to two gaping loopholes. Goods made with forced labour must be allowed into the US if consumer demand cannot be met without them and it is hard, if not impossible, to prove fish in a particular container is tainted because different batches generally mix together at processing plants.

Also, former Justice Department attorney Jim Rubin said, Customs cannot stop trafficked goods without the help of other federal agencies to investigate overseas.

“You can’t expect a Customs guy at the border to know that a can of salmon caught on the high seas was brought in by a slave,” he said.

Apart from the law, the US response to Thailand is shaped by political considerations.

Last year, after several waivers, the State Department dropped the South-east Asian nation for the first time to the lowest rank in its trafficking report, mentioning forced labour in the seafood industry. Countries with the same ranking, such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, faced full or partial sanctions. But Thailand did not, receiving US$18.5 million (S$24.9 million) in aid from US taxpayers last year.

“If Thailand was North Korea or Iran, they’d be treated differently,” said Mr Josh Kurlantzick, a fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “They’re a key ally and we have a long relationship with them.”

The US has already suspended US$4.7 million in military funding to Thailand because of a military coup last year. However, the country is still considered a critical ally against terrorism. A US Senate report in December detailed how top Al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah was water-boarded, slammed into a wall and isolated at a secret safe house in Thailand as part of CIA interrogations in 2002. And in 2003, a senior Al Qaeda operative was arrested outside Bangkok.

The US also wants strong relations with Thailand as a counterweight to the growing influence of China, and has accepted its claims to be addressing labour abuse. And the Labor Department, which flags seafood from Thailand every year as produced by forced labour, began talks for an action plan in the fall.

Thailand deputy government spokesman Major General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said the government “is determined and committed to solving the human trafficking issues, not by words but by actions”.

In the meantime, migrant fishermen rescued from Benjina are bewildered to learn that their abuse has been an open secret for years. Mr Maung Htwe did backbreaking work for Thai captains in Indonesian waters over seven years, earning less than US$5 a day, if he was lucky.

“Sometimes I’m really angry. It’s so painful. Why was I sold and taken to Indonesia?” asked Mr Htwe. “If people already knew the story, then they should have helped us and taken action.” AP