Thailand Seafood Hotspot

     “Thailand Seafood Hotspot” project, supported by The Freedom Fund, promotes the rights of cross-border migrants in the fisheries sector by strengthening the ability of the migrant workers in vulnerable communities to fight against exploitation. Many migrant workers find themselves in exploitative situations. It might be related to deceptive hiring practices, confiscation of identity documents by the employer, or forced labor.

     Under this project migrants are informed of their labor rights. While those that are being exploited or abused are provided with emergency action often with law enforcement officers and support legal consultation and shelter. The project is implemented in Samut Sakorn and Pattani Provinces. Raks Thai staff built capacity of migrant worker leaders to orient their peers on labor rights issues and pass on skills in leading community support groups for other migrants. It is anticipated that the leading core groups in the migrant community so that they can help each other protect their rights and refer peers to relevant government services.

     Wasurat Homsud, Raks Thai Senior Program Officer overseeing this project, mentioned that:

     “Mostly, the worker education process involves organizing discussion groups in the migrant communities. Often, there are no meeting rooms in which to do this. So, sometimes we actually conduct the group sessions on board fishing boats which have very limited space. We also have staff from Raks Thai who are bi-lingual migrants to help conduct the orientation. We have to use handouts instead of PowerPoint presentations. The key content is labor rights, social security rights, and places to go to redress grievances. We leave a phone number which any migrant can call to report a labor rights violation.”

     Raks Thai works with public and private sector agencies to encourage greater concern for the needs and protections of migrant workers and join forces to advocate for improvements in policy and law related to the fisheries sector.