The Survivor

I knocked out the following for World Humanitarian Day, Aug 19.
GoT

She’s survived al-Shabaab’s fatal attraction and the murder of her father, two-days crammed aboard a boat adrift in the Malacca Straits, weeks living off handfuls of rice, shattered dreams of safety abroad, years in limbo under IOM’s care in Indonesia and most recently, a bout with cancer. Unshakable in her faith, eyes forward and a smile on her face, Asma Mohammed Hashi is ready for what she hopes will be a final struggle, for health and safety and relevance in a foreign land.

Just 22, Asma has seen a lifetime’s worth of upheaval that began in the streets of her war-torn hometown, Kismayu, a gritty Somali port city where the Jubba River empties into the Indian Ocean. She grew up under siege. During the country’s prolonged civil war the city of 180,000 fell to Islamist militants who imposed their own austere brand of the faith on the population.

It’s there, in 2011 that al-Shabab soldiers, one of the patchwork of militias that had emerged over the years of conflict, arrived at her door. It wasn’t the first time.

“They told my father that I had to go with them to be married,” she recalls. “He told them ‘No, she will not go with you’.”

A short time later her father and uncle were murdered by al-Shabab.

Asma fled the city for an uncle’s home in Mogadishu but there was no safety there. The following year, the same al Qaeda-affiliated militiamen again came knocking, looking specifically for her.

“My uncle told me I could not stay there any longer; his own family was in danger. He found the smuggler who took me out of the country,” she says. “He accompanied me to Malaysia.”

She spent a harrowing, stormy two days aboard a small fishing vessel in the Malacca Strait along with roughly 20 other Somalis desperate to travel to Australia via Indonesia. Together they flew to Makassar where the smugglers promised a boat was chartered to take them to Australia. They waited together in a small beachside home for weeks, surviving on a bit of rice and a handful of water, terrified they’d be arrested if they ventured out, but no one showed up.

“It was the Eid, (Eid ul Fitri is the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan) and we had so little to eat,” she says, tearing up. “For us it is supposed to be a joyful time… but it was very hard.”

Dreams dashed and out of money, Asma and her companions reported themselves to the authorities and, after uncomfortable weeks sleeping on the floor of an office, were processed into the local immigration detention centre, where she first encountered IOM staff. A short time later she was released to stay in a rooming house.

“There are many Somali people in the detention area; we are a big group. We cared for each other,” is all she offers about that trying period.

It can take many years for irregular migrants like Asma to be resettled to a third country. Ultimately, she was determined to be a refugee and a cousin in the southern United States was located who was prepared to support her should she be approved for settlement there.

“We have never met but she sent me pictures of my room in her house on Viber (social media),” she says with a gentle smile. “I have learned not to lose hope. We must be patient and pray for a brighter future.”

Finally a light had appeared at the end of the tunnel only to be dashed when she fell ill in early 2015; the young woman who had endured so much was diagnosed with a malignant form of cancer.

With IOM’s assistance and donor support from the US Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, she underwent surgery at a leading Jakarta cancer hospital to have a tumor larger than a softball removed from her abdomen in July.

“Throughout these difficult times Asma received close support and care from her compatriot Ms. Sadiya who stood by her like a loving sister and helped Asma maintain her positive spirit, optimism, hopes and dreams despite her diagnosis,” says IOM senior migration health advisor Dr. Sajith Gunaratne.

“She’s a shining example for people affected by conditions that drain hope from life itself. She has shown a strength of human spirit that is boundless. With further treatment, she will hopefully have many more productive years ahead of her.”

Though she faces further treatment, her humanitarian resettlement to the US was approved. Just a week after her release, Asma was strong enough to meet the IOM escort who accompanied her on the momentous move overseas in early August.

“I always believed I have a future. I know only God can heal me so I relax and I pray and I don’t lose hope,” she says when asked how she has remained positive in the face of so many storms.

“I think when I get to America I want to be an oncologist… Math and science were my best subjects in school; now I want to help people like me.”

For more information about global migration issues please visit:
IOM Indonesia

http://weblog.iom.int/survivor

Over 500 New Human Trafficking Victims Identified in Indonesia since Benjina ‘Slave Fisheries’ Exposed

I knocked out this blog a while back but it was never posted for one reason or another. Now updated to July 31, it timelines the work done to date bu IOM and the government to assist victims of trafficking in the foreign fisheries in Indonesia.

http://weblog.iom.int/over-500-new-human-trafficking-victims-identified-indonesia-benjina-%E2%80%98slave-fisheries%E2%80%99-exposed

Hunt for "Slave Ships" Continues

Nice to be back in the 'game'.
The stories out of Benjina, Ambon and PNG are pretty awful. Glad the Guardian/Observer picked up for the Saturday edition.
Ambon is where it is all happening; PNG was just the news peg.

 Benjina facility, Eastern Indonesia

Hunt is on for 33 slave ships off coast of Papua New Guinea

Immigration officials seek trawler fleet crewed by 1,000 trafficked Burmese men that is thought likely to be supplying the UK with seafood

A fleet of at least 30 fishing trawlers crewed by slaves is being hunted off the coast of Papua New Guinea as the true extent becomes apparent of the trafficking of Burmese men by a massive Thai-run criminal syndicate operating throughout the East Indies.

Immigration officials have so far intercepted one of the fishing vessels, called the Blissful Reefer, and rescued its trafficked crew. Another 33 Thai trawlers thought to be crewed by slaves are being tracked in fishing grounds off the south coast of Papua New Guinea, known locally as the Dog Leg.

The trawlers are thought to be linked to a huge trafficking operation that was disrupted on the isolated Indonesian island of Benjina in March, liberating hundreds of enslaved fishermen – although a large number of boats loaded with slaves managed to escape.

Analysis of the trafficking operation reveals that the fish, which were originally heading for Thailand’s huge export-oriented seafood trade, are entering global supply chains, with some almost certainly destined for Britain.

It has also emerged that another, much larger, fleet of fishing boats crewed by slaves has been identified on the Indonesian island of Ambon – 1,200 miles to the west and once an important destination in the region’s spice trade. Officials from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) believe that a further 240 Thai fishing vessels are moored there, along with a total of around 1,000 slaves. To date, the crews of around 70 fishing vessels have been interviewed by IOM officials on the island, resulting in the rescue of some 350 Burmese slaves who will be repatriated to Burma (Myanmar). Accounts from a handful of former Burmese slaves who have already arrived home say hundreds of men remain unaccounted for.

Paul Dillon, a Jakarta-based IOM official, told the Observer: “We’ve interviewed the men from over a third of the 240 vessels in the port and discovered over 350 victims of trafficking, virtually all of whom are from Myanmar. If the pattern holds and we’re finally able to get access to the remaining men, we could be looking at up to 1,000.”

However, Dillon said local corruption had obstructed attempts to examine the remaining boats: “We are hoping they will see the light, understand that we are on a humanitarian, not a law-enforcement, mission, and let us get in there, assess and rescue these men and get them back home to their families.”

The findings and potential scale of slavery in Ambon has prompted the IOM to look at extending its investigation to ascertain how many other slave fishermen are being forced to work in Indonesia – an archipelago of more than 17,500 islands, of which just 922 are permanently inhabited.

“The Ambon experience has stirred us up to want to look at other parts of the country,” said Dillon. “Currently we don’t know where else in the country there are large numbers of fishing vessels standing by. Many of the islands are very remote.”

Meanwhile, the hunt for the Thai fishing vessels in the narrow, dangerous straits of the Dog Leg will continue this week as the Blissful Reefer is impounded in the port of Daru in Papua New Guinea. The eight crew members of the vessel, rescued on Monday, have been found to be trafficking victims. George Gigauri, the IOM’s chief of mission in Papua New Guinea, said: “They are trying to locate an approximate area where the vessels are, and then narrow it down exactly. The search is becoming more targeted, although it is difficult.”
Advertisement

The boats are suspected of being part of a massive transnational Thai trafficking operation that until recently operated from the Benjina fisheries weigh station in eastern Indonesia.

In November, an investigation by Associated Press discovered hundreds of forced labourers, mainly from Burma, on Benjina. Some were filmed trapped in a cage, and many of those interviewed said they had been abused or had witnessed others being beaten – or in some cases killed.

Almost all described being kicked, beaten or whipped with toxic stingray tails if they complained or attempted to rest. Despite working 20- to 22-hour shifts and being forced to drink unclean water, they were either paid a pittance or went unpaid.

The discovery by AP led to at least 300 men managing to escape but, before help arrived at the island, boats loaded with slaves fled the region for new fishing grounds – some to the island of Ambon, others apparently to the Dog Leg.

The Burmese slaves are recruited to work in Thailand’s seafood business and are usually lured or tricked into leaving their country to go to Thailand, where they are then taken south and put on boats in Indonesia. Others, though, are kidnapped and forced to work.

Once in Indonesian waters – some of the world’s richest fishing grounds for species including tuna and prawns – the ships’ names and flags are changed to escape the authorities’ notice, although the captain of the trawler is usually a Thai national.

Thailand’s seafood industry is worth around £5bn a year, with the vast majority of its produce exported globally to satisfy the global appetite for cheap fish. The catches are deposited with a huge refrigerated “mothership”, which transports the fish back to Thailand. Dillon said: “Look, It’s a billion-dollar business. There are powerful interests out there who have been making a lot of money for many years off the backs of these men, through acts of great cruelty. It is not going to disappear overnight, but in Indonesia at this time there appears to be the will to break their business model.”

However, little is known of the size of the Thai criminal syndicates, of their connections or of how they manage to coerce and recruit so many slaves. Investigators are still searching for the nerve centre of the operation.

Gigauri said: “It’s still not clear to us how this operates. Where exactly are these boats registered? To which company do they report? Who does the recruiting? Where is the headquarters of this operation?”

Last year another Guardian investigation tracked the supply chain of prawns produced with slave labour to British and American supermarket chains. Another more recent inquiry linked Thailand’s fishing industry with the trafficking syndicates profiting from the misery of Rohingya migrants.