Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has vowed to punish officers who fail to tackle forced-labour seafood processing facilities, after an Associated Press report highlighted the scourge of slavery still afflicting the fish industry in the port province of Samut Sakhon.
"We are dealing with the issue, aren't we?" Gen Prayut said. "Arrests are under way."
He insisted all offenders will be arrested and officers who failed to do their jobs will be dealt with accordingly.
"All military and police officers have their duties. If they do not fulfill their duties, they will be guilty," the prime minister said.
Pol Maj Gen Kornchai Klayklueng, commander of the Anti-Human Trafficking Division, said officers had gathered intelligence to combat human trafficking, resulting in multiple arrests.
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It is unlikely there are as many factories using forced labour as were reported, he said, though he admitted some facilities may be hidden and under the radar of law enforcement.
Pol Maj Gen Kornchai said he will call a meeting with police to discuss the issue before taking further action.
The report by AP, published Monday, exposed the slave-like working conditions of Myanmar workers at a Samut Sakhon shrimp-peeling mill, named the Gig Peeling Factory.
One worker, Tin Nyo Win, 22, had worked at the factory for five months -- starting in July this year -- alongside his pregnant wife, Mi San. According to the report, the couple was lured from their home in Myanmar to work at the Gig shed without visas or work permits, and forced to peel nearly 80kg of shrimp for just 144 baht per day.
Workers, including children, were assaulted, cursed and forced to work even when they were ill. The couple eventually attempted to escape. Tin Nyo Win succeeded but his wife was caught.
On Nov 9, Tin Nyo Win returned to the Gig with law enforcement officers to find his wife. She was located at another fish factory nearby.
The shrimp peeled by the forced labourers in the factory enters into the supply chains of major seafood exporters, and reaches US, European and Asian markets.
The Command Centre for Combatting Illegal Fishing (CCCIF) said Monday authorities had searched 90 seafood processing plants in 22 coastal provinces since Nov 9 and found many of them violated the Labour Protection Act.
Legal action has been initiated against them, said Vice-Admiral Chumpol Lumpiganon, chief of the CCCIF's Public Relations Department.
Efforts are being made to force them to comply with regulations, including work hours, wages and other benefits, VADM Chumpol said. Meanwhile, authorities are investigating the shrimp-peeling sheds where the human rights abuse was reported.
The sheds are among many facilities found to have committed wrongdoing, said VADM Chumpol, adding that law enforcement will be stringent, and raids will be carried out swiftly. "We are building understanding among the operators of seafood processing plants about the issue," VADM Chumpol said. "In the past, we did not give weight to the issue, but this is now among criteria set out by the EU."
ML Boondarik Smithi, permanent secretary for labour, said the ministry will also try to clamp down on child labour.
The ministry is proposing a new law to bar minors under the age of 18 from working at plants, said ML Boondarik. The current laws allows plants to hire minors under 17 years old for certain kinds of jobs, she said.
Meanwhile, a source in the fishery industry in Samut Sakhon said the number of child workers in the processing industry had dropped vastly after authorities stepped up inspections in recent months, and business operators agreed to cooperate by refraining from using child labour and illegal migrant workers.
But some of the small-scale peeling sheds may be short of workers and turn to undocumented workers, including child labourers, the source said.
Meanwhile, the SET-listed Thai Union (TU), the world's largest canned tuna processor and a global leading seafood processor, was also criticised for sourcing shrimp from illegal factories.
TU has said it will stop working with all external pre-processors by Dec 31 to avoid being embroiled in slave labour, after it could not verify whether its subsidiaries sourced seafood from illegal sub-contractors.
The company decided to bring all processing operations in-house starting in January 2016, to allow TU full oversight of all processing stages.
"From Jan 1 next year, all processing work will be directly controlled by Thai Union, ensuring that all workers, whether migrant or Thai, are in safe, legal employment and are treated fairly and with dignity," the TU said.
"We were concerned that, despite regular audits, it is difficult to guarantee that all external pre-processors were adhering to our Code of Conduct," the company said.
When the TU stops working with external suppliers, more than 1,000 workers will lose their jobs.
The TU has said it will hire affected workers to work in-house, said Sasinan Allmand, TU's head of corporate communications.
"We are implementing our plans to bring the pre-processing of our shrimp products under Thai Union and will offer safe and legal employment to thousands more workers. This is a positive step towards our goal of ridding the Thai seafood sector of illegal labour practices," TU president Thiraphong Chansiri said.
