"Thailand: Forced Labor, Trafficking Persist in Fishing Fleets," 23 January 2018

Forced labor and other rights abuses are widespread in Thailand’s fishing fleets despite government commitments to comprehensive reforms...

The...report, “Hidden Chains: Forced Labor and Rights Abuses in Thailand’s Fishing Industry,” describes how migrant fishers from neighboring countries in Southeast Asia are often trafficked into fishing work, prevented from changing employers, not paid on time, and paid below the minimum wage. Migrant workers...do not have the right to form a labor union.

Even though Thailand has received a “yellow card” warning that it could face a ban on exporting seafood to the European Union because of its illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices, and the United States has placed Thailand on the Tier 2 Watch List in its latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, Human Rights Watch found widespread shortcomings in the implementation of new government regulations and resistance in the fishing industry to reforms.

...[M]easures to address forced labor and other important labor and human rights protection measures often prioritize form over results...[U]nder the PIPO system...officials speak to ship captains and boat owners...but rarely conduct interviews with migrant fishers.

...[T]here is no effective...inspection of fishers working aboard Thai vessels...[I]n its 2015 report on human trafficking, Thailand revealed that inspections of 474,334 fishery workers failed to identify a single case of forced labor...