Fishing Company Owner Awaiting Sentence for Trafficking. PHNOM PENH - The owner of a major fishing company is now in jail and awaiting sentencing for alleged human trafficking, in a case that highlights the major dangers faced by unwitting workers forced to labor in international waters. Lin Yu Shin, the owner of the Giant Ocean International Fishery, is accused of trafficking hundreds of Cambodians and sending them to work in slave-like conditions on fishing vessels around the world. Authorities say her case underscores the need for better education about lawful migration and the dangers of illegal work abroad. Lin was arrested in Siem Reap province in May and is currently in Prey Sar prison awaiting sentencing. The 53-year-old woman is accused of trafficking mostly male workers from rural communities into the international fishing industry. Chiv Phally, deputy chief of the Interior Ministry’s anti-trafficking and juvenile protection department, said police received complaints about Lin from 169 families, which sparked an investigation in 2011. Families claimed her company had cheated workers and sent their sons to work as fishermen in Japan and other countries, promising wages of around $200 per month. Those workers, police say, where then sold to fishing operations on different ships around the world. Police caught up with Lin after she closed her company, changed her name and began operating a souvenir shop at a night market, Chiv Phally said. Twenty-three-year-old Yei Chenda was among Lin’s alleged victims. He told VOA Khmer that he and five other villagers from Chi Kreang district, Siem Reap province, agreed to work for Giant Ocean in 2011, expecting fair wages for work in Japan. “But that was a lie,” he said. He traveled from Cambodia to South Korea, and that’s when things went wrong, he said. “They sold me to one captain of a fishing ship in Fiji, where my passport was taken and I was forced to work nearly 18 hours a day.” Chiv Phally said Cambodian police have found at least 700 cases where Cambodians were sent to work on ships by Lin’s company, winding up across the globe, off the coasts of South Africa, Fiji, Qatar, Malaysia and Singapore.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 05:50:44 +0000
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