PHNOM PENH (Khmer Times) – Rescue does not end trauma.
Most Cambodian men and boys brought home from Thai fishing boats return with symptoms rather than the cash they were promised. These range from headaches to addiction and shock, psychologists working with those who have been rescued say.
This was also apparent in interviews conducted by Khmer Times with men and boys who had been trafficked to work on Thai fishing vessels. Some still had physical scars, all remained wounded psychologically.
They still recall working long hours, sleep deprivation, and beatings from their bosses and colleagues.
“When I can’t work the way they ordered me to, they hit me and cursed me,” said a former fisherman who was rescued from Indonesia and asked not to be named. He says that sometimes his Thai boss would beat hit him with a stick. “I don’t think I will ever be able to forget,” he said.
When there were fist to catch there was no time to sleep. The only time he could relax was when fish were scarce. Even when he was sick he had to work.
“Whatever the illness I had, I only got Paracetamol,” he said. He was one of 13 Cambodian workers on the boat.
After spending six years on the boat, he was recently rescued with assistance from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The Middleman
The reason he ended up on the boats was poverty. Unable to make a living farming in Prey Veng province, at 23 he decided to leave to find a job in the border town of Poipet in Banteay Meanchey province.
“I thought that I could find a job as a construction worker in Poipet and rent a room to live there,” he told Khmer Times. When he arrived in Poipet, he was persuaded by a middleman to work in Thailand. He agreed to go even though he did not have a passport.
“They told me that if I went to work on a boat in Thailand I could earn a lot of money and that I would be able to return to shore once a week. But the real situation was not like that. When I got to the boat, they shipped me to Indonesia,” he said. At the time he thought Indonesia was a part of Thailand.
The middleman sold him to the boat owner for 25,000 baht ($690), and he was ordered to work without salary, he said.
“Every three or four months the boat would come to the shore in Indonesia and they would give me a little bit of money to buy something,” he continued.
He tried to contact his family for several years to tell them what was happening to him. Finally, he managed to get through and they informed the provincial office of rights group Adhoc. Adhoc then informed the IOM, and he was eventually rescued when his boat came ashore.
Lingering Trauma
Nuth Sam Ol, a senior project assistant at IOM, is well aware of abuse cases. He said that many crewmembers have to work non-stop and some are beaten by their bosses and other fishermen.
“People who work on the boats have to work all day and night and work without sleeping if there are a lot of fish to catch. If they work with a good boss it is no problem, but if they work with bad boss they will get beaten. In some cases the boss will use a gun to beat them,” said Mr. Sam Ol.
“There are many people on the boat who come from different countries so sometimes those fishermen argue and beat each other,” he added.
Mr. Sam Ol said Cambodian migrant workers usually work in three countries: Thailand, Malaysia and China. Most are men.
He said they were lured to Thailand by claims that they could earn a lot of money there. “Some of them did not know that they were cheated, and they think that the way their [boss] uses them is just normal,” said Mr. Sam Ol.
The IOM found more than half of the migrant fishermen it interviewed were traumatized. They require emergency psychological support, the UN agency said.
Most could not answer questions from the IOM and some of them did not remember who they are, said Phoeun Bunna, a psychologist at IOM. This makes difficult to find a job, and keep it, after being rescued.
Mr. Bunna said they return with symptoms rather than cash. Most often these are severe headaches. In some cases the men go into shock when they are asked about their experiences on the boats, he said.
Some rescued workers require full-time care. The IOM has to find them housing and ensure basic services are met. “We have to tell them how to eat, how to dress and how to talk to each other,” Mr. Bunna said.
Feeling hopeless in life, many can fall into drug abuse. “Some of them drink alcohol and smoke at a level that a normal person would not,” he said.
This can sometimes be a habit formed on the boats. “They have told us that they have unintentionally used drugs because they were tricked into thinking that it is energy medicin,”Mr. Bunna said.
“Some of them realized that they were using drugs, but they had no choice because they need it to feel more energy,” he added.
Mr. Bunna said that most traumatized victims of trafficking could be treated and eventually return – not just to home – but to a normal life. Others cannot survive without support, he said.