Globally, trade in fish products continues to reach record highs, and developing countries now contribute over half of the value of total exports. Within this expanding world market, Thailand has emerged as a major supplier, with the value of its seafood exports reaching US$6 billion in recent years. A significant contribution to the industry’s growth is given by the migrant labour force. Shortages of Thai workers willing to work on fishing vessels have transformed fishing crews to predominantly consist of migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar. Several hundred thousand women and men migrant workers are now employed at different levels within the seafood supply chain in Thailand, working precariously under various temporary labour migration regimes and precarious living and work conditions. Recent research suggests that serious labour abuses persist for a significant number of migrant workers in the fishing and seafood processing industry.

Organized by SEA Junction in partnership with International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Ship to Shore Rights South East Asia funded by the European Union, the photo exhibition gives, as the title says, a glimpse of “Migrants’ Labour & Lives in Thailand’s Blue Economy.” In particular, the photos taken by Thailand-based photographer John Hulme over the course of a decade focus on the two major fishing and sea-processing locations Rayong and Ranong with a majority of workers from Cambodia and Myanmar. They show the migrant’s faces, community life, their work from shore to vessels and the gender distribution of labour with women carrying the double burden of unpaid household work and full-time employment in seafood processing jobs. In their humanity, the images ask questions about how to better protect these fellow human beings and integrate them in our societies.

For more information, please contact
Lattapol Jirapathomsakul 
Mobile 097-0024140
Facebook SEA-Junction
Website SEA-Junction