BANGKOK — For six years, Prasert Sriwaurai was trapped at sea aboard a Thai trawler. He and his crewmates rarely sighted land, let alone spent time ashore. Denied medical care after an on-deck facial injury , he lost sight in one eye, according to a report in U.K.-based news outlet The Telegraph. Exposed to violence, forced labor and pitiful working conditions up until his escape from the ship in 2014, Prasert was one of many victims of the modern slavery rife at the time in Thailand’s fishing industry and revealed through a series of investigations roughly one decade ago. In response to the investigations, international seafood buyers such as the EU and U.S. imposed strict sanctions on Thailand’s fisheries sector, spurring the government to enact a series of legal reforms in 2015 and 2016 to clamp down on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and associated labor abuses. But eight years after those reforms, Thai lawmakers are now discussing amendments to Thailand’s Fisheries Act in a bid to improve profits and reduce legal burdens on commercial fishers. Observers say the proposed changes risk a return to the lawlessness of the not-too-distant past, placing human rights, local livelihoods and fish stocks at risk. “Marine resources are shared resources,” Piya Thedyam, a leader from the Federation of Thai Fisherfolk Association, told Mongabay. “The spirit of the Fisheries Act clearly states that this law is intended to take care, protect, remediate and help local fisherfolk. However, this written spirit is about to be…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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