Roundup: Over 200 trafficked Cambodian fishermen return home from Indonesia on charter aircraft

Some 213 trafficked Cambodian fishermen, who were rescued from Thai fishing vessels operating from the Indonesian island of Ambon, returned home Thursday morning on a charter Boeing 737 airliner, a Cambodian government official said. "At the request of Cambodian diplomats in Jakarta with the coordination from the Indonesian government, the fishing boat operator had paid for airfares for the laborers to return home," Interior Ministry Secretary of State Chou Bun Eng told reporters at Phnom Penh International Airport while visiting those returnees. "Some of the laborers have health problems, so we will cooperate with the IOM (International Organization for Migration) or other partners to have their health checked up," she said.

According to a statement from the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, the PT Maribu Industries Group, which represents the Thai boats that the fishermen were working on in Indonesia, had hired a 213- seat Boeing aircraft to transport those laborers directly from the Ambon island to Phnom Penh.

The remaining 17 laborers will arrive on Thursday afternoon aboard a separate flight, the statement said. "At the request of the Cambodian Embassy to Indonesia, the Thai company had paid salaries to the 230 laborers already," it said.

Trafficked fishermen are frequently forced to work long hours and physically and psychologically abused. They are often unpaid and forced to serve on voyages for months or even years.

The discovery of those migrant laborers, who had been forced to work aboard foreign vessels, came after the Indonesia's Fisheries Ministry imposed a fishing moratorium in November last year.

One of the victims, Tolors Sol, 46, said he had worked as an illegal fisherman in Indonesia for 16 months before being rescued and sent back home. "My family was very poor, I did not know how to earn my living. When ringleaders told me that working as fishermen abroad could earn good salary, I followed them," he told Xinhua. "I left Cambodia illegally to Thailand, where a ringleader made a passport for me to enter Indonesia to work as a fisherman."

He said he got 9,000 Thai Baht (267 U.S. dollars) per month during working on the fishing boat.

Another victim Seng Sinet, 27, said that he was promised by a ringleader to work in Thailand with high wage, but finally ended up working in a Thai fishing boat in Indonesia for more than two years. "The ringleader persuaded me to work in Thailand with a promised salary of 14,000 Thai Baht (416 U.S. dollars) per month. When I arrived in Thailand, he continued to smuggle me into Indonesia to work as a fisherman," he said. "On the fishing boat, we were forced to work both at day and night times, nearly 20 hours per day."

He said he got 9,000 Thai Baht (267 U.S. dollars) a month. "I'm very happy to have life to return to Cambodia to meet my parents and relatives. I will never go back to do such risky job again," he added. Endi