Often deep at sea, it is a “workplace characterised by extreme isolation, hazardousness, and gaps in regulatory oversight”. I don’t know what he thought of us as, but we weren’t human.” ‘Unfinished agenda’Īcross the globe, close to 130,000 people remain trapped in forced labour on fishing vessels, according to the latest estimates from the International Labour Organization (ILO). “They would scald us with boiling water and, if we didn’t wake up in time, they would hit us with the pipe or a hammer… The didn’t think of us as humans. “There was no time to eat, no time to sleep – really, it was torture,” Sriwaurai told the Telegraph, pointing to the burn marks on his leathery skin. The ship spent most of its time in southern Indonesia – more than 2,500 miles from Sriwaurai’s Thai home. While his daughter and mother feared the worst, he was trapped on a boat in conditions “not even fit for a slave”.

It would be seven years before Sriwaurai saw his family again, or stepped foot back in Thailand.

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