Man Re-united With His Family After 22 Years of Torture And Slave Labour

A Myanmar fisherman who left home with the promise of getting work from an agent has been reunited with his family after 22 years of torture and slavery.

The Daily Mail reports:

Every year, thousands of migrant workers like Myint Naing are tricked or sold into the seafood industry’s gritty underworld.  It’s a brutal trade that has operated for decades as an open secret in Southeast Asia’s waters, where unscrupulous companies rely on slaves to supply fish to major supermarkets and stores worldwide.

In 1990, his father drowned while fishing, leaving him as the man in charge at just 15, So when a fast-talking broker visited the neighborhood three years later with stories of jobs in Thailand, Myint was easily wooed.

The agent offered $300 for just a few months of work — enough for some families to survive on for a year.

His mother, Khin Than, wasn’t so sure, but he kept begging, arguing that he wouldn’t be gone long and relatives already working there could look after him. Finally, she relented and he left in 1993.

After easily skirting police at the border with Thailand and being held in a small shed with little food for more than a month, Myint was shoved onto a boat. The men were at sea for 15 days and finally docked in the far eastern corner of Indonesia.

The captain shouted that everyone on board now belonged to him, using words Myint would never forget:

‘You Burmese are never going home. You were sold, and no one is ever coming to rescue you.’

He was panicked and confused. He thought he would be fishing in Thai waters for only a few months. Instead the boys were taken to the Indonesian island of Tual in the Arafura Sea, one of the world’s richest fishing grounds, stocked with tuna, mackerel, squid, shrimp and other lucrative species for export.

Myint spent weeks at a time on the open ocean, living only on rice and the parts of the catch no one else would eat. During the busiest times, the men worked up to 24 hours a day, hoisting heavy nets rippling with fish. They were forced to drink foul-tasting boiled sea water.

Myint was treated badly and totured for years, he then ran away. An Indonesian family took mercy on Myint until he healed, and then offered him food and shelter in exchange for work on their farm.

For five years, he lived this simple life and tried to erase memories of the horrors at sea.

In 2001, he heard one captain was offering to take fishermen back to Myanmar if they agreed to work. He was determined to find a way home. So, eight years after he first arrived in Indonesia, he returned to the sea.

Right away, he knew he had fallen into the same trap again. The work and conditions were just as appalling as the first time, and the money still didn’t come.

He begged to go home but his requested was not granted, he then decided to run away again.

After he ran the second time, Myint hid alone in a bamboo shack in the jungle.

When he became too sick to work, the same Indonesian family cared for him with a kindness that reminded him of relatives back home.

In April a friend came to him with news: An AP report linking slavery in the seafood industry to some of the biggest American grocery stores and pet food companies had spurred the Indonesian government to start rescuing current and former slaves on the islands. To date, more than 800 have been found and repatriated.

This was his chance. When the officials came to Dobo, he went back with them to Tual, where he was once a slave — this time to join hundreds of other free men.

After 22 years in Indonesia, Myint was finally going home.

When he reached his home state, Myint’s emotions started to fray

He called a phone number that he had gotten only the day before. Seconds later, when he saw a plump Burmese woman — on the same road that had led him away so many years ago — he knew immediately it was his little sister.

They exploded into an embrace, and the tears that spilled were of joy and mourning for all the lost time apart. ‘Brother, it’s so good that you are back!’ she sobbed. ‘We don’t need money! We just need family! Now you are back, it’s all that we need.’

But his mother was missing. Myint anxiously scanned the road as his sister frantically dialed a number and then a small, frail figure with gray-streaked hair began to run.

When he spotted her, he howled and fell to the ground, burying his face in his hands. She swept him up in her arms and softly stroked his head, cradling him as he let everything go.