Secrets of the deep: Senegal's slave shipwreck detective

Yahoo – AFP, Jennifer O'MAHONY, 17 Aug 2017

Secrets of the deep: Senegal's slave shipwreck detective

Dakar (AFP) - Staring out to sea on a flawlessly sunny day, underwater archaeologist Ibrahima Thiaw visualises three shipwrecks once packed with slaves that now lie somewhere beneath Senegal's Atlantic waves.

He wants more than anything to find them.

Thiaw has spent years scouring the seabed off the island of Goree, once a west African slaving post, never losing hope of locating the elusive vessels with a small group of graduate students from Dakar's Cheikh Anta Diop University.

Goree was the largest slave-trading centre on the African coast between the 15th and 19th century, according to the UN's cultural agency UNESCO, and Thiaw believes his mission has a moral purpose: to heal the open wounds that slavery has left on the continent.

"This is not just for the fun of research or scholarship. It touches us and our humanity and I think that slavery in its afterlife still has huge scars on our modern society," he said, pulling on a wetsuit and rubber boots for the day's first dive.

Thiaw believes his native Senegal, with its own long and violent history of trade in human flesh, could tell the world more about how modern capitalism was founded on violence inflicted on African bodies.

"The Atlantic slave trade was the foundation of our modernity, so this is a history for all mankind," he added, referring to the so-called "Triangular Trade" of human labour for consumer goods between Africa, the Americas and Europe.

After making final checks on the magnetometer that will run up and down a painstakingly designated strip of seabed for traces of wreckage, Thiaw disappears under the surface of the dark green waves.

1,000 slave shipwrecks

African nations affected by the slave trade have never fully come to terms with it, Thiaw believes, and even today in countries like Senegal, a caste of people still refer to themselves as slaves.

The horrors of the so-called Middle Passage, or journey across the Atlantic, not only industrialised the trade of people but ripped entire societies from their roots.

"The umbilical cord between Africa and its diaspora was broken and in the ocean (slaves) were being seasoned to be other people, to adapt to other conditions," he notes.

Thiaw, who originates from a rural area of Senegal but went on to study in the United States, had become known for his research into slaves' living conditions on Goree island when he was approached three years ago by the US National Park Service and National Museum of African American History and Culture to find a west African base for their "Slave Wrecks" project.

They offered dive training, equipment and expertise and had already helped establish similar dive sites in Mozambique and South Africa, with one historic success.

Artifacts, including shackles and ballasts from the Sao Jose Paquete de Africa, a Portuguese slave vessel that sank in 1794 with more than 200 slaves on board, were dredged up off the coast of Cape Town in 2015.

Around 1,000 slave shipwrecks are believed to dot the seabed between Africa and the Americas, according to "Slave Wrecks" researchers, but few have been found.

Today's dive, like dozens before it, was unsuccessful.

Precious clues

"We found a modern shipwreck, a big one," the powerfully built Thiaw said, seawater running down his face, but "it's not really what we are looking for."

The trio of wrecks Thiaw seeks -- the Nanette, the Bonne Amitie and the Racehorse -- all disappeared off Goree in the 18th century, taking with them crucial evidence of how enslaved Africans were carried across the harrowing Middle Passage.

The key is building a team of Senegalese archaeological divers who will dedicate themselves to the task, as some of his students graduate and move on.

The overwhelming majority of slave ships were repurposed and simply rotted away after abolition, meaning the slave shipwrecks preserved by the sea will provide precious clues.

'Silence' around slavery

Thiaw complains that there is a lack of interest within Senegal for his work, especially at the institutional level where, he said, there was "very little funding for research".

"I think in Senegal there's a lot of silence surrounding the issue but I think the time is ripe that we start to teach our students and our children how to respect people of different or lower status, slave caste," he said.

Discrimination remains a problem in the country, with some people still referred to as slaves using the word "jaam" in the country's majority Wolof language.

"There are still people, who are still known to be slaves," he said. "Some of them would even tell you proudly: 'yes, I am a slave'."

Thiaw wants his nation to unflinchingly analyse "the most painful aspects of our history and the contradiction of our history", especially the lingering elements of a class system that designated some Senegalese as worthy only of serving others.

Senegal's past lies somewhere on the seabed between Dakar and Goree, but perhaps also its future.

"We know they are there," Thiaw said.

Thai crackdown on rogue fishing as fears grow over EU ban

Yahoo – AFP, Preeti Jha, 1 July 2015

Migrant workers sort fish in a port in Mahachai on the outskirts of Bangkok (AFP

Photo/Nicolas Asfouri)

Mahachai (Thailand) (AFP) - A belated Thai clampdown on illegal fishing is forcing unlicensed vessels ashore, threatening to paralyse a key industry as the kingdom desperately tries to avoid a European Union ban on exports worth $1 billion a year.

Barrels of fish packed in ice are usually rolled off boats at a bustling port in Samut Sakhon, a coastal province near Bangkok, by Myanmar and Cambodia migrant workers who prop up the world's third largest seafood producer.

A migrant worker sits on a fishing boat

 in a port in Mahachai on the outskirts of

Bangkok (AFP Photo/Nicolas Asfouri)

But many will sit idle from Wednesday, say their Thai employers, who have failed to obtain necessary fishing permits under a raft of new government rules aimed at cleaning up the shadowy industry.

Next to buckets of red snapper destined to become fish balls for the local market and fishmeal to rear shrimp marked for Europe, a Thai vessel owner says there are "too many rules and too little time".

"We will have to keep paying bills with no income," said the worried 59-year-old, who withheld his name, as he prepares to cease operations until he can meet the conditions for a new permit.

The Wednesday deadline to register boats with authorities and acquire permits under revised standards, including installing equipment such as tracking devices, comes after the European Union threatened to ban fish imports from the kingdom unless it combats illegal fishing.

In April Brussels issued Thailand with a "yellow card" for inadequate fisheries monitoring, controls and punishment, warning that a "red card" and eventual import ban would follow if it failed to improve within six months.

The spectre of losing $1 billion in European sales is a shortfall the ruling military can ill-afford in an already sluggish economy.

Thailand saw only 0.3 percent growth in the first quarter and exports have been slowing in part, says the World Bank, due to an erosion in competitiveness.

Aphisit Techanitisawad, president of The Thai Overseas Fisheries Association, estimates around 3,000 fishing vessels nationwide will forsake the seas from Wednesday.

A worker checks canned fish at the 

Anusorn Group factory in Tasai, on the

 outskirts of Bangkok (AFP Photo/

Nicolas Asfouri)

"About 80 percent of all the fishermen, they're coming back to shore" to seek permits, he told AFP at his fisheries factory in Samut Sakhon.

Thailand's image battered

A recent shortage in fresh fish has already seen his workers stop processing crab sticks for French export, instead focussing on canning sardines and mackerel from frozen supplies for the Myanmar and Cambodian markets.

A labour ministry spokeswoman said around 80,000 migrants were working in Thai fisheries since the deadline for compulsory migrant registrations closed Tuesday.

Aphisit thinks the government could have imposed a more lenient timeframe for changes.

But premier Prayut Chan-O-Cha has remained adamant the industry has been left unchecked for too long.

"Don't put any more pressure on government," he said when asked about rising anger within the fishing industry.

"If we don't pass these measures a 200 billion baht ($6 billion) industry could be wiped out so everybody should cooperate," he said.

Thailand's image has been battered in recent years by a series of fishing abuse allegations from prominent rights groups of ships using slave and child labour as well as trafficking victims.

Migrant workers at work in a port in 

Mahachai, on the outskirts of Bangkok

(AFP Photo/Nicolas Asfouri)

And last year the US downgraded the kingdom to its lowest ranking on human trafficking, a designation that can trigger sanctions.

Bangkok is desperate to improve its standing, while sanctions have not yet been imposed, laying out new measures including a ban on fishing workers under 18 in the months since. The latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report is due for imminent publication.

Observers say that while the latest threat of an EU ban has triggered a renewed sense of urgency in authorities, rushed actions will fail to combat illegal fishing in the long-term.

Improving "monitoring, control and surveillance" will help to tackle longstanding problems of pirate fishing, slavery and trafficking in Thailand's fisheries industry, said Daniel Murphy, a Bangkok-based campaigner for the Environmental Justice Foundation.

But by rapidly regulating the neglected sector the government "risks regularising more vessels than Thailand's exhausted waters can support as well a significant number of vessels which have spent years openly flouting fishing laws", he said.

In this handout photograph released by Indonesia’s Ministry of Fishery on

 April 8, 2015, hundreds of rescued foreign fishermen mostly from Myanmar and

Thailand are gathered during an operation at the private Indonesian fishing firm

 Pusaka Benjina Resources located in remote Benjina island of Maluku

province. (AFP Photo/Ugeng Nugroho/Ministry of Fishery)

Related Articles:

Thailand Faces EU Threat of Seafood Ban Over Lax Fishing Rules

Thailand Tells Indonesia It Will Tackle Illegal Fishing

Joko praises Minister Susi’s Work on Combating Illegal Fishing

A fisherman formerly held in slave-like conditions by a Thai-owned fishing firm in

Benjina, Maluku, shows evidence of abuse. (Antara Foto/Humas Kementerian

Kelautan)

Thailand Faces EU Threat of Seafood Ban Over Lax Fishing Rules

Jakarta Globe, Jonathan Stearns, Apr 21, 2015 

In this handout photograph released by Indonesia’s Ministry of Fishery on
 April 8, 2015, hundreds of rescued foreign fishermen mostly from Myanmar and
Thailand are gathered during an operation at the private Indonesian fishing firm
 Pusaka Benjina Resources located in remote Benjina island of Maluku
province. (AFP Photo/Ugeng Nugroho/Ministry of Fishery)

The European Union threatened to ban imports of seafood from Thailand because of concerns about illegal fishing, a step that would curb trade of more than 600 million euros ($641 million) a year.

The European Commission said Thailand has been too lax in the international fight against unlawful, unregulated and unreported fishing. Thai authorities have six months to enact “a corrective tailor-made action plan” or risk an EU trade ban, said the commission, the 28-nation bloc’s regulatory arm.

“Failure to take strong action against illegal fishing will carry consequences,” EU Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday in Brussels. “Should the situation not improve, the EU could resort to banning fisheries imports from Thailand.”

The EU is seeking to use the size of its seafood market to prod exporting countries around the world to promote sustainable fisheries. The total value of EU imports of fish products last year was 20.7 billion euros, of which Thailand accounted for 642 million euros, according to the commission.

The EU already prohibits imports of seafood from Guinea, Cambodia and Sri Lanka because those three countries allegedly haven’t done enough to tackle illegal fishing. The bloc last year added Belize to the European fisheries blacklist before lifting the curbs on that nation following “reforming efforts” by authorities there.

In its statement today, the commission withdrew warnings it had issued against South Korea and the Philippines about illegal fishing. Both countries have since improved their legal systems and are “now equipped to tackle illegal fishing,” the commission said.

Bloomberg

A fisherman formerly held in slave-like conditions by a Thai-owned fishing firm in

Benjina, Maluku, shows evidence of abuse. (Antara Foto/Humas Kementerian

Kelautan)

Related Article:

Joko praises Minister Susi’s Work on Combating Illegal Fishing

Joko Praises Minister Susi’s Work on Combating Illegal Fishing

Jakarta Globe, Novy Lumanauw, Apr 07, 2015

A fisherman formerly held in slave-like conditions by a Thai-owned fishing firm in
Benjina, Maluku, shows evidence of abuse. (Antara Foto/Humas Kementerian
Kelautan)

Jakarta. President Joko Widodo on Tuesday expressed support for Maritime and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti and called on her to continue tackling illegal fishing in Indonesian waters.

Joko was speaking in response to a year-long Associated Press investigation that revealed the use of slave labor by at least one company operating in Benjina in Maluku’s Aru Islands district. A Thai-owned fishing company based in Benjina was recently discovered to have confined and exploited fishermen, mostly from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, in slavery conditions.

“This is an international issue and I want thorough reporting on it,” Joko said.

Susi said she was disturbed to learn that Pusaka Benjina Resources had been keeping at least 327 slaves in captivity, working under the threat of torture or even death. The ministry has since shut down the company.

The revelation has prompted the ministry to pledge closer monitoring of fishing companies operating throughout Indonesia.

Susi said her office quickly inspected other companies operating in Benjina and found a further 1,185 fishermen living in similar conditions.

The minister said there was evidence other firms in the area were using slave labor — and had been doing so for years.

The director general for monitoring of maritime resources, Asep Burhanuddin, said the ministry had formed a task force with local prosecutors, immigration officials, the Navy and the National Police.

On Friday, days after the story broke, the task force was deployed to Benjina. The workers, some of whom had been enslaved for nine years, were taken to Tual, an island around 100 kilometers west of Aru, from where they were repatriated.

Company officials have been charged with human trafficking and violating the Manpower Law.

Meanwhile, Joko also asked the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) to monitor the flow of funds to illegal fishing vessels to aid Susi in her crackdown.

“She’s done good work and the ministry needs to keep it up,” Joko said in a discussion about illegal fishing. “All ministries and the PPATK need to continue working together so we can find out everything about illegal fishing,” he added.

“The Maritime and Fisheries Ministry needs this knowledge so that it can act accordingly and based on the facts.”

Related Article:

Scores of Seafood Slaves in Indonesia, Officials Turned Blind Eye: Report

Scores of Seafood Slaves in Indonesia, Officials Turned Blind Eye: Report

Jakarta Globe, Tri Listiyarini, Apr 05, 2015

Maritime and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti says she will closely monitor
 fishing companies operating in Indonesia to prevent slave labor. (Reuters
Photo/Tim Wimborne)

Jakarta. Maritime and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti pledged to closely monitor fishing companies operating in Indonesia after a year-long Associated Press investigation revealed at least one Indonesian firm — and likely many more — using slave labor.

Susi said she was disturbed to learn Pusaka Benjina Resources had been keeping 327 workers, mainly from Myanmar, working in captivity without pay, on pain of torture or even death.

Her office has since shut down the company, based in Benjina, in Maluku’s Aru Islands district.

“We will launch an investigation; we will sanction [those involved],” the minister said on the sidelines of her visit to a fishing village in Pangandaran, West Java.

“In Benjina, even though the victims are foreigners, Indonesia felt it must take action because [the case] happened within Indonesia’s jurisdiction,” she said.

Susi said her office quickly inspected other fishing companies operating in Benjina and found 1,185 fishermen working there, mostly from Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, in slave-like conditions.

The minister said there was rampant evidence that other firms in the area were using slave labor — and had been for years.

With the help of sympathetic locals, the AP interviewed the Myanmar workers, who said they were forced to work 22 hours a day, whipped with toxic stingray tails, denied any pay, and barred from returning to their home country or tell anyone about their plight. Some were put in cages.

The director general for monitoring maritime resources, Asep Burhanuddin,  said the ministry formed a task force with the local prosecutors, immigration offices, the Indonesian Navy and National Police.

On Friday, days after the story broke, task force officials deployed to Benjina for a crackdown.

“We were able to confirm that there are slavery practices [at PBR],” Asep told Detik on Sunday. “Some were electrocuted for the tiniest mistake like falling to sleep. This is inhumane.”

The workers, some of whom have been slaves for nine years, were taken to the Tual, some 100 kilometers west of Aru Islands, where they were repatriated.

Company officials have been charged with human trafficking and violating the Manpower Law while the task force investigates who else may have been involved.

Thailand failing to tackle fishing industry slavery, says rights group

Environmental Justice Foundation says progress on eliminating human trafficking in Thai fishing ‘wholly inadequate’

The Guardian, Kate Hodal, 18 Feb 2015

The Thai government claims to have made progress in cracking down on slavery
in its fishing industry, but a report by the Environmental Justice Foundation
contains a litany of failures. Photograph: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images

Thailand has made wholly inadequate progress in its efforts to eliminate human trafficking in its multi-billion dollar fishing industry, and has failed to combat both endemic corruption and the involvement of state officials in trafficking despite repeated promises to do so, a rights group claims.

Trafficking victims are still vulnerable to abuse and attack in Thai government shelters, while government inspections of fishing vessels consistently fail to identify abuse or perpetrators of abuse, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) says in a briefing paper, Broken Promises (pdf). These failures, among a litany of others, prove that the government’s efforts over the past year have failed to meet even the most minimum of standards for eradicating slavery, the group says.

Thailand was downgraded in June to the lowest level in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report, ranking it alongside Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia in its treatment of workers and the way it protects them from abuse. The downgrade came after a Guardian report into the Thai fishing industry found that slaves forced to work on Thai fishing boats for no pay were integral to processing prawns sold in the US, UK and elsewhere in the EU by industry giants including Tesco, Walmart, Carrefour and Costco.

But the military-backed government claims to have made significant progress in its attempts to combat human trafficking over the past year. Last month, deputy foreign minister Don Pramudwinai detailed extensive new measures – GPS-monitoring systems on fleets, million-dollar fines for illegal fishing and anti-corruption officers to improve investigations – as proof that the nation was cracking down on slavery.

The EJF paper, however, highlights alarming reports of slavery over the past year, among them the October rescue by Indonesian authorities of 35 Thai nationals from Thai fishing fleets, and the January sale of a father and son on to a Thai trawler by Thai police officers.

The lack of regulation or prosecution of illegal labour brokers, enforcement of existing laws, or even provision of adequate protection and support to trafficking victims – many of whom have alleged assault, threats at gunpoint and physical beatings at government shelters – are clear indicators that Thailand should remain on the State Department’s lowest ranking this year, said EJF’s executive director, Steve Trent.

“Nothing that we have seen or heard in the last year indicates that Thailand has taken meaningful action to address the root causes of trafficking and abuse,” said Trent. “After four years on the tier 2 watchlist and one year on tier 3, the Royal Thai government is still failing to take the action needed to prevent trafficking and human rights abuses in the fishing industry.”

Although Thailand began inspections at sea last year, video footage shows interviews of fishermen taking place in front of their boat captains or gangmasters – the very men who are often responsible for trafficking workers – while local media reports indicate that officials often fail to determine the work conditions, wages or trafficking status of those being questioned. This is due in part to inadequate screening processes, EJF claims, but also to the lack of official vessels at sea, budget restrictions on fuel, and maritime border issues.

Other rights groups, among them Human Rights Watch, have said that nothing less than a complete overhaul of Thailand’s fishing industry would suffice to address the “systematic and pervasive use of trafficked men” on its fishing boats.

“Only a few of the most open and forward-looking companies and industry associations are moving to address the challenges of labour exploitation quickly enough, and they too are held back by the government bureaucracy, corruption and entrenched broker-reliant migrant recruitment, registration and regularisation systems,” migrant rights activist Andy Hall said.

“Too many companies, as well as purchasing giants overseas, continue to seek to hide these challenges through ineffective audits whilst passing almost all of the burdens and costs of these challenges on to workers or subcontractors.”

Thailand has pointed to its registration of 1.6 million migrant workers – 70,000 of whom EJF claims work directly in the fishing industry – as proof that it is combating trafficking. But with the Thai fishing industry facing a labour shortage of roughly 50,000 men, recruitment on to fishing boats remains, by and large, an informal process taken on by illegal brokers who work directly with Thai boat captains.

Little has been done to address that shortage, rights groups claim, and a recent government proposal to fill that gap with prison inmates was met with both local and international derision.

Activists working in trafficking hotspots in Thailand recently told the Guardian that while the government had ramped up patrols in ports and on docked fishing vessels, the real problem was still the thousands of trafficked men stuck out at sea.

“From what I can see, trafficking is still in full force,” one activist charged with helping vulnerable seafarers in southern Thailand told the Guardian. “A Burmese slave recently escaped from a [fishing] boat and said there were many others like him still out at sea – Burmese, Cambodian, all sorts – so to me it looks like the measures aren’t working.”

Slavery in prawn trade: shoppers urged to boycott seafood sourced unethically

Marine Stewardship Council, Greenpeace and Marine Conservation Society say retailers must be called to account

The Guardian, Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent, 11 June 2014

The Marine Conservation Society warns that current labelling may not help
consumers identify sustainable and ethical sources of seafood. Photograph: CHT

Environmental campaigners and human rights groups have said the revelations of slavery in the prawn supply chain are a wake-up call for consumers. They are urging shoppers to boycott cheap Thai prawns and other imported seafood if supermarkets can not guarantee the goods have been sourced ethically.

The Marine Stewardship Council, which backs a labelling scheme to help shoppers buy fish ethically, said the other option was to buy cold-water prawns fished from the north Atlantic – which accounts for about a third of all prawns eaten in the UK – or Dublin Bay prawns from the Irish Sea.

An MSC spokesman said: "This is undoubtedly an extremely serious and important issue. We condemn the practices described in the Guardian investigation."

The Marine Conservation Society which advises consumers on fish to eat and fish to avoid on ethical grounds, urged consumers to try to find out, before buying, whether supermarkets were engaged with improvement projects in Thailand or the rest of south-east Asia. It said, however, that labelling was limited in its scope and might not help.

Willie Mackenzie, Greenpeace's oceans campaigner, said: "Cheap seafood trashes oceans and ruins lives. The Guardian's investigation exposing slavery in the seafood industry should be a worldwide wake-up call to retailers and consumers.

"Forced labour and human rights abuses are not just issues in tropical prawn farming, they are unseen factors in other fishing too. UK retailers are in many ways the best in the world on sourcing seafood responsibly, but there is clearly a lot more to do."

The six-month Guardian investigation established a trail between prawn products sold by US, British and European retailers and violent slave labour. The investigation found that the world's largest prawn farmer, the Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, buys fishmeal, which it feeds to its farmed prawns, from some suppliers that own, operate or buy from fishing boats manned by slaves.

Supermarkets which have sourced cheap Thai "king" prawns supplied by CP Foods include the world's top four retailers – Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco – along with big UK supermarket chains Morrisons, the Co-op, Aldi UK, and Iceland.

Retailers refrained on Wednesday from adding to their earlier statements condemning slavery and human trafficking.

A spokeswoman for the charity Compassion in World Farming said: "Consumers should take the advice of the Environmental Justice Foundation; ask retailers about their supply chain, and when buying fish look for the Marine Stewardship Council logo to ensure wild-caught fish is sustainable.

"Consumers should also be aware that there are no animal welfare standards for prawns, while there are also questions of the long-term sustainabiliy of feeding fish meal to prawns, which takes away from the global food basket, rather than adding to it."

Owen Espley, economic justice campaigner at the anti-poverty charity War on Want, said: "This investigation shows how UK retailers are profiting from appalling labour rights violations within their supply chains. British [firms] need to come clean about their sourcing and ensure action is taken to protect all workers from such abuses. The time is long overdue for British ministers to step in where retailers' voluntary initiatives have failed and ensure that all companies take action to address the exploitation throughout their supply chains."

The chef and Guardian writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who investigated Thai prawns for his Fish Fight series for Channel 4, said that CP Foods and UK retailers had "to use their buying power and political influence to clean up Thailand's fisheries, and fast".

Related Article:

US may blacklist Thailand after prawn trade slavery revelations

Indonesian Fishermen Stranded in South Africa After Horror Story at Sea

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Stuart Graham, December 2, 2013

Two of the 75 Indonesian fishermen living on seven rusted Taiwanese-registered
fishing boats sit at Cape Town Harbor on Nov. 28, 2013. (AFP Photo/Rodger Bosch)

Cape Town. Dozens of Indonesian fishermen who spent months stranded in Cape Town’s harbor, sleeping in cramped and suffocating quarters, have been taken ashore to a repatriation center after being stuck at sea for years without pay.

The group of 75 fishermen tell of slavery-like working conditions aboard seven Taiwanese-owned vessels — an ordeal that only grew worse when South African authorities impounded their trawlers for illegal fishing.

The crew spent three months stranded in Cape Town’s Table Bay, sleeping crowded together in dirty, airless quarters that reeked of diesel, until they were moved to a repatriation center in Johannesburg on Saturday.

The captain has been arrested, but the men lacked the legal papers to go ashore, and had been living like prisoners on the trawlers, dependent on the compassion of locals for food.

Some of the men say they were recruited by agents in Jakarta with promises of earning up to $200 a day fishing tuna.

But once on board they were forced to work round-the-clock with little food and no pay.

“You can start at two o’clock in the morning and work all the way to 10 at night. And then two o’clock in the morning you start again,” one dejected worker told AFP.

Many of the fishermen did not want to give their names for fear of repercussions from the recruitment agents back home who lived near their families.

After local media began covering the men’s story, immigration officials took them ashore, said Miriam Augustus, who had been providing them with food and water.

“I asked the policeman why they are moving the fishermen,” Augustus said. ”He said, ‘This is what happens when you go to newspapers and say bad things about the country.’”

South Africa’s fisheries department did not respond to requests for information on the men.

The men said despite their horror story, they are determined to wait for payment, saying they cannot afford to go back home penniless.

“I have a wife and three children at home,” said one man. ”After all this time how can I return without even one cent to my name?”

Laundry hangs on seven rusted Taiwanese-registered fishing boats where 75 stranded
 Indonesian fishermen have been living at Cape Town Harbor, on Nov. 28, 2013
(AFP, Rodger Bosch)

‘Floating shanties’

A 44-year-old man said he had worked on various vessels for 37 months without pay, often transferred to other boats when his contract expired.

The men also claim that at times they were ordered to repaint the name of their vessel at least five times a day, in an attempt to evade fishing authorities.

Tuna was not the only fish caught during their lengthy stay at sea. Other catch included swordfish, dolphins and sharks, in contravention of local marine laws.

A fishing log from one boat showed a catch of 70 tones.

Cassiem Augustus, a ship inspector for the International Transport Workers’ Federation, said the trawlers were like “floating shanties.”

“This is a blatant case of abuse and human trafficking,” he said. ”They have been abandoned by their agents and no one knows who the owners of these vessels are.”

He said inside the vessel there was one toilet for 12 men and that they had been drinking out of a tap used to pump oil one day and water the next.

“The conditions were inhumane. None of these men have been paid a cent, despite working 20 hour days. It’s slavery at sea.”

A spokeswoman for the Indonesian consulate in Cape Town said the fishermen were mostly uneducated and were from rural areas.

“They have no jobs and when they are offered one they become excited,” she said.

Maritime lawyer Alan Goldberg, who has applied for the vessels to be auctioned on behalf of the crew, suspect that the trawlers were owned by fishing cartels.

“These tales of abuse are the ordinary course of business in the longline fishing industry,” he said.

He said he doubted the run-down fiberglass boats would fetch a high price.

Agence France-Presse