• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

South Koreans practicing slavery?

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
32,024
Location
Yokohama, Japan
South Pacific Slaves Put Seafood on U.S. Tables (Bloomberg)

On March 25, 2011, Yusril became a slave. That afternoon he went to the East Jakarta offices of Indah Megah Sari (IMS), an agency that hires crews to work on foreign fishing vessels. He was offered a job on the Melilla 203, a South Korea-flagged ship that trawls in the waters off New Zealand. “Hurry up,” said the agent, holding a pen over a thick stack of contracts in a windowless conference room with water-stained walls. Waving at a pile of green Indonesian passports of other prospective fishermen, he added: “You really can’t waste time reading this. There are a lot of others waiting, and the plane leaves tomorrow.”

Yusril is 28, with brooding looks and a swagger that belies his slight frame. (Yusril asked that his real name not be used out of concern for his safety.) He was desperate for the promised monthly salary of $260, plus bonuses, for unloading fish. His wife was eight months pregnant, and he had put his name on a waiting list for the job nine months earlier. After taking a daylong bus ride to Jakarta, he had given the agent a $225 fee he borrowed from his brother-in-law, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Feb. 27 edition. The agent rushed him through signing the contracts, at least one of which was in English, which Yusril does not read.

The terms of the first contract, the “real” one, would later haunt him. In it, IMS spelled out terms with no rights. In addition to the agent’s commission, Yusril would surrender 30 percent of his salary, which IMS would hold unless the work was completed. He would be paid nothing for the first three months, and if the job were not finished to the fishing company’s satisfaction, Yusril would be sent home and charged more than $1,000 for the airfare. The meaning of “satisfactory” was left vague. The contract said only that Yusril would have to work whatever hours the boat operators demanded.

Locked In

The last line of the contract, in bold, warned that Yusril’s family would owe nearly $3,500 if he were to run away from the ship. The amount was greater than his net worth, and he had earlier submitted title to his land as collateral for that bond. Additionally, he had provided IMS with the names and addresses of his family members. He was locked in.

What followed, according to Yusril and several shipmates who corroborated his story, was an eight-month ordeal aboard the Melilla 203, during which Indonesian fishermen were subjected to physical and sexual abuse by the ship’s operators. Their overlords told them not to complain or fight back, or they would be sent home, where the agents would take their due. Yusril and 23 others walked off in protest when the trawler docked in Lyttelton, New Zealand. The men have seen little if any of what they say they are owed. Such coerced labor is modern-day slavery, as the United Nations defines the crime. (The South Korean owners of the Melilla ships did not respond to requests for comment.)
Click to expand...
 
Thankfully some of those workers were sensible or desperate enough to walk off the ship in NZ and ask for help.

The plight of foreign sailors working conditions on ships in the South Pacific came to light in 2010 after workers fled another Korean ship in NZ under similar circumstances. The University Of Auckland Business School produced a paper called "Not in New Zealand's Waters, Surely?" documenting human rights abuses aboard foreign charter vessels operating in NZ's huge EEZ.

These abuses are illegal under NZ law which require: FCV's operating in the EEZ pay their crew at least $2 more than the NZ statutory minimum wage for every hour worked and that no deductions can take a full time workers pay below that level, that the ship must maintain basic living standards for the crew including standards for food, hygeine, clothing, medical care and amenities. The law also stipulates that all employment disputes on FCVs in the NZ EEV are to be investigated and resolved by the NZ employment authorities. The Department of Labour has pointed out that it is currently very hard to enforce the pay rules for foreign owned ships paying their sailors overseas.

In the last three months two Korean owned ships have been held in port by order of the High Court until the dispute over the sailors pay and conditions is resolved, including the ship in the OP.

A joint Ministerial Inquiry commitee was appointed to investigate the situation in 2010 and presented it's report to Parliament this week. The report has not yet been published.

A charitable trust called Slave Free Seas was set up last year to provide legal representation to exploited sailors.

This case is the sort of thing that sticks sideways in the craw of most New Zealanders and a wide range of public, private and business groups are calling on the Government to come down on these pirates like a ton of bricks. I'm hopeful that the situation will be greatly improved in the near to medium future.
 
Update: The inquiry's report has now been released. The recommendations seem pretty solid and the Government has already agreed to implement the first six. They will tighten the procedures regarding FCVs and strengthen the tools available for enforcement. In particular, the burden of proof will be shifted to the operators of FCVs to prove that they are in compliance with employment law rather than the Department of Labour having to prove individual breaches.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will put an observer aboard all FCVs in the EEZ to ensure compliance and to provide a point of contact for the crew.

Crew wages will have to be paid into a New Zealand bank account and all vessels, operators and charter parties will be audited continually.

Maritime New Zealand will take direct responsibility for safety conditions aboard FCVs and hold them to the same standard as NZ vessels.

MNZ, MAF and the Department of Labour will develop a coordinated program of FCV inspections both in port and at sea with staff trained to monitor a broad range of standards and practices. NZ Navy resources will be available to assist.

In short it looks like it will shortly become a lot harder for dodgy operators to skate the rules and mistreat their employees in the huge and lucrative NZ EEZ.

A lot of agencies seem to have been working toward this for some time now. Good on ya.
 
Good on 'em, indeed! Any word on the crew of the boat in question (or the subject of the article in the OP)? (I can't link to much of anything other than the JREF from my office - for whatever reason, it's on our "white list" so it preserves my sanity.)
 
WildCat said:
Does anyone know the answer to this?
Click to expand...

I don't know if it's ever been challenged before the Institution for Industrial Relations Dispute Settlement (IIRDS). I couldn't find any information about it,

Here is an overview Indonesia's employment law, and this is an overview of their contract law..
 
WildCat said:
Does anyone know the answer to this?
Click to expand...

Indonesia's legal system is a joke in general and obscene when it comes to protection of their overseas workers. There have been at least three major cases in the past couple of years of amahs(domestic helpers) being abused to the point of torture and the only thing that gets attention from Jakarta is if it goes viral on YouTube or in the papers around the region.

And then? They have someone from their labour department fly over to Malaysia or Singapore or Saudi Arabia and the two governments shake hands and agree that foreign workers in their countries have rights and that bosses shouldn't abuse them and then it happens again a few months later.

The agencies who hire the locals in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines are all bloodsuckers, but legal bloodsuckers. Their own governments allow these agencies to charge them ridiculous fees for the privilege of earning about three hundred bucks a month. Some of the fees range into roughly six months' wages! And that's if the agencies are legitimate. Since the demand is so high, they charge under-the-table finders fees.

There are half-a-dozen illegal (by Indoensian law) things in the way these fishermen/mariners were hired. If it gets a lot of press, they might fine a manager or something, but they won't change the system until the whole system of corruption in every walk of life in Indonesia changes. (They're getting better but they rank in the top two or three countries in the world in terms of institutionalized corruption.)

I don't know where it ranks statistically for Indonesia, but for The Philippines their overseas workers are the single largest source of income. In countries rife with cronyism and corruption this is an invitation for a few well-placed individuals to make a financial killing.

The governments that allow these foreign workers in openly discriminate against them (much as we've got proposals to allow "permit workers" who would not have right to abode, but far worse). In Hong Kong, I'm a "Permanent Resident" because I've resided here over seven years. An Amah who's been here for twenty years cannot claim that right. (We have demonstrations on the topic every 4/6 weeks, here. After I leave if anyone wants to take my place carrying a picket sign, PM me.)
 
Foolmewunz said:
Good on 'em, indeed! Any word on the crew of the boat in question (or the subject of the article in the OP)? (I can't link to much of anything other than the JREF from my office - for whatever reason, it's on our "white list" so it preserves my sanity.)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure. This article has some interesting information regarding other Korean ships being held in port. Oyang 77 tried to run for it on Thursday but turned back because they thought the Navy was pursuing them. The crew was then expelled from the ship and flown home by the owners, allegedly under duress. They have allegedly tried to get the crew of Oyang 75 (who blew the whistle by walking off in 2010) out of the country as well but failed.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Indonesia's legal system is a joke in general and obscene when it comes to protection of their overseas workers.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that info. FWIW, Indonesia ranks pretty far down the list in terms of perceived corruption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

Countries that are this corrupt generally don't have reliable legal systems, and I would imagine that they would favor the shady recruiters who have money to bribe the judge rather than the victims, who do not.

ETA: New Zealand interestingly, tops the list (i.e., is perceived to be the least corrupt country in the world). Good on em'.
 
Last edited:
Puppycow said:
Thanks for that info. FWIW, Indonesia ranks pretty far down the list in terms of perceived corruption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

Countries that are this corrupt generally don't have reliable legal systems, and I would imagine that they would favor the shady recruiters who have money to bribe the judge rather than the victims, who do not.

ETA: New Zealand interestingly, tops the list (i.e., is perceived to be the least corrupt country in the world). Good on em'.
Click to expand...

While I hate the Corruption Perceptions Index (vocal jingoistic paper democracies score rather well,... Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore... and I could buy business in tea houses in those countries or China or even Hong Kong), being down at number 100, followed mostly by newly emerging or deep Third World countries is pretty low.

When I list Nigeria, India, Viet Nam, Indonesia, provincial China, Thailand... those are places I'm familiar with (with which I'm familiar). You get stopped by a cop for a traffic ticket? Leave the equivalent of US$ 3 folded up in your license when you give it to him. "You can go sir." You want a visa? Roughly $100(US). Something to get winked at through customs? $20. You want your phone installed on time? $10. Etc.... It's systematic and runs through ever aspect of the countries.
 
sounds like a libertarians paradise..... I don't see what all the fuss is about, the crew are perfectly free to jump overboard if they wish.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom