Emperors of the Deep by William McKeever

Author:William McKeever
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Human Trafficking at Sea

LEARNING THAT SOME FISHERMEN WILL RISK DEATH TO escape from fishing boats made me realize something is out of the ordinary. What could be forcing the men to stay on the boats? Could human trafficking be taking place in the fishing industry? Since fishing is a worldwide industry, a number of nongovernmental organizations are advocating for workers’ rights on the high seas. While researching this book, I traveled to London to visit with David Hammond, who at the time was the first chief executive officer of Human Rights at Sea (HRAS), an independent UK-based maritime human rights charity, to learn more about working conditions on commercial fishing boats.

A former officer and lawyer in the British Royal Marine Commandos, Hammond has a strong no-nonsense presence. His status as an international human rights barrister and seafarer early in his career also helps with his cause. One has the expectation that he could physically stand up against anyone, yet underneath the tough exterior is a man with a deep concern for the weak and marginalized.

The founding principle of HRAS is that human rights apply equally at sea as they do on land. As the leading independent maritime human rights platform, the organization has published a number of high-profile papers documenting abuses at sea and has launched a number of investigations and provided support for fishermen formerly held as slaves. Today, they have ongoing case studies of human rights abuse from Fiji to Iran, United Arab Emirates, and the central Mediterranean area. The pattern of such abuse in the maritime environment is emerging as being systemic, but yet significantly underreported on a global scale. No one knows the true scale of the issue.

Hammond shared with me the chilling stories of several young men who were held captive at sea. For their safety, their names have been withheld, but all of the men discussed here are now trying to get back to their home countries, which is a real challenge without money or a passport.

One man was kidnapped at age seventeen while trying to top off his telephone credit card in a local shop. He said, “A man grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth. I ended up in the boat. My parents are still wondering where I am.”

An eighteen-year-old from northern Bangladesh was seeking work in Dhaka, the capital of the country. An elderly man offered him a job that paid $6 a day. The two traveled to a small remote house, where the young man was bound and drugged. When he woke up, he found himself on a boat. Once at sea, he was repeatedly beaten.

A third man, an electrician, was kidnapped by a gang of men at a house where he was scheduled to do repair work. As soon as he entered the house, the men grabbed him and knocked him out with chloroform. Later, the electrician woke up on a fishing boat, miles out at sea. To this day, he is still trying to return home to his mother.

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