I I remember the first time I read a story about human trafficking about 30 years ago. It was a story in the Observer and I really thought the paper had gone mad. It just couldn’t be true, could it? It’s a real modern-day human trafficking where people are basically kidnapped, taken to other countries, stripped of their papers and forced to do dangerous jobs in horrific conditions. I really thought some conspiracy theory had the reporters in control.
I miss the days when it was possible to be so ignorant, so ignorant of the depths of depravity to which humanity would sink if it had a dollar on it. From the perspective of 2024, when an estimated 40 million adults and children will be victims of such exploitation (as labor, as sex, as both), those days will be considered halcyon days.
Now, Slavery at Sea, an hour-long summary of a three-year BBC investigation into allegations of grotesque exploitation of migrant workers by a Scottish fishing fleet owned by Tom Nicholson, which he runs with his son, Tom Nicholson Jr.
We meet numerous men employed by Nicholson’s company. The word “employed” should be put in quotation marks, however, as all claim to have worked for virtually no pay, not to mention rest periods, health and safety precautions, and all the other things deemed necessary when operating heavy machinery on the already dangerous sea. Their stories are very similar. Most paid fees and signed contracts with agencies in their home countries – the Philippines, Taiwan, Ghana, and Punjab in India, as the Nicholsons apparently moved their recruitment area to stay one step ahead of the authorities when reports came in of mistreatment of their fleet. The men arrived in Scotland to find themselves in entirely different jobs on boats other than those declared, and their passports and documents were confiscated before they set sail.
Joel Quince from the Philippines is one of the relatively lucky ones – he had fishing experience, after all. Others were factory workers or electricians who had signed up as engineers to work on tankers instead of fishing boats. But, as almost all of them point out, who were they to complain to when the reality was different from the idea they had been sold? How can you claim your rights when you are miles from the mainland, with a foreign crew and a captain who made you violate visa regulations and who has shown that he has no interest in the welfare of his own people?
The men claim they were given too little to eat and drink and worked to the point of exhaustion for a few pounds an hour. And you couldn’t just stop, weak with hunger, or refuse to work the relentless 18-hour days because, as Quince says, “If I stop working, all my colleagues will suffer.” His attitude is a sign of the gaping gulf in humanity between the workers and the bosses.
There are countless stories of injury and near-death experiences. Erma, the widow of Indonesian worker Yoyok Wijayanti, tells of his fatal accident on a boat that should never have been at sea. There are stories of hardship and vulnerability: after fleeing or being removed from their jobs in police raids, workers waited years for justice, faced deportation and the iron-clad ruthlessness of the system. Their main haven in the storm was the local Fisherman’s Mission, then run by sisters Paula Daly and Karen Burston, who were the first to notice that something was wrong with the way the Nicholsons ran their £4 million business.
The police’s attempts to gather evidence and thwart other operations are shown. The small fine imposed on the Nicholsons’ company after they were eventually found guilty of some of the charges against them is mentioned. Reporter and anchor Chris Clements attempts to personally question Nicholson Sr. in his yard. We see the white-haired figure of a man retreating deep into his office and closing the door behind him.
Nicholson’s company denies any wrongdoing, apart from delaying treatment for Quince when he suffered a head injury on a boat captained by Nicholson Jr. Ten years later, the company pleaded guilty in court and had to pay him £3,000 in compensation. The anger and powerlessness of the men who suffered (and of those trying to change the law, increase protection and help individuals) is palpable. “They favour the rich and don’t care about the poor,” Quince says bitterly. “It’s just an image for all of you that you have the law.”
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