visit. the young ones hope this will become the norm rather than the exception plenty more news and features on our website at aljazeera.com 7♪ ♪ >> in 2015. evidence of slavery on a massive scale surfaced in the remote islands much eastern indonesia. this is ambon, an indonesian island 600 miles east of australia.

all of these ships have indonesian flags, but these were thai ships. there were something happening board those ships that were far worse than that. 2,000 men came forward who were enslaved on thai fishing boats, on these waters, working for as long as a decade without pay. the boats here were central to one of the world's most important food suppliers, thai fishing industry, thailand is the second largest exporter of seafood. and the united states consumes much of it.

the global demand for cheap seafood and years of unpaid labor will they receive any justice at all? we've come to southeast asia to speak with the men who have been catching our fish for years. we're over 2,000 miles east of thailand. but fish here are so abundant that thai trawlers have been making the journey for years. in 2014, the indonesian government imposed a moratorium on commercial fishing in its territory. fishing boats were forced into the nearest port which had an unexpected effect. hundreds of trafficked men fled the ships and took refuge here.

in the past year there have been over a thousand who have passed through this camp. now there's just dozens left for us to hear their stories. almost all are migrants, men from myanmar, cambodia, laos, who traveled to thailand for better pay. most are from myanmar and never even intended to work at sea. all of those, all of them were tricked into getting onto the boats?

>> they've come from the high lands, the central plains of moirn. the first boa of myanmar. >> oversees this camp. >> there seem to be a pattern of abuse these men face, beating by sting ray tails. real harsh treatment. >> i want a show of hands how many saw with their own eyes beatings taking place? almost everybody. beatings taking place at sea .

>> some worked for as long as a year and a half without ever getting off the boat. that's because rather than go to port, their boats unloaded the catch onto refrigerated cargo ships at sea. a process known as trans-shipping. three of these trans-shimg shipping vessels remain. re

refer ships, those include suppliers to thai union the largest producer of canned tuna in the world which exports nearly half of that product to the u.s. under the brand, chicken of the sea. >> it's almost impossible to separate what effectively are slave caught fish from fish that are being caught through more legitimate means. >> in addition to tuna, many of the fishermen we spoke to caught species called trash fish. >> how many are catching trash fish? in thailand, trash fish are processed as pet food for brand like iams or fancy feast. >> it is part of the business model. many of the reasons why your shrimp cocktail at your fancy

restaurant doesn't cost you an arm or a leg is the labor costs are so low. >> in the last year nearly 2,000 trafficked fishermen have been repatriated to their home countries. thai owners have had to offer cash settlements to them set up by indonesian authorities. one day one man had agreed to take the money and go home. >> discussions happening at the room in the port between the captains and the companies and the fishermen themselves. 14 of those men have agreed to the terms so today they are going to be paid out in full and in a couple of days' time we're going to put them on an aircraft and send them home. >> this is nay men a 23-year-old forced to work at sea for a year and a half. he accepted the equivalent of

$180 per month, lest than thailand's mix wage of $250 -- minimum wage of $250. the day before their return to myanmar, we sat down with the men who accepted payments. for them, the money settled very little. >> that's just like a third of the total amount. >> yeah, even less than one-third. >> it sounds like all of these guys have serious complaints about compensation they received. they're telling us there was no burmese translator in the room when the settlement was made and they didn't understand what was going

on. this is tant, now slightly deaf from the beatings he received. he served the equivalent of $3,000. just one-third of what he says he is owed. >> 28 months, okay. so that's way less than you should get? >> yeah. >> so why haven't you taken the money? >> because i wanted to -- just wantewanted to go back to see te family. >> this man's restitution amounted to only about $150 for every month he was enslaved. >> you haven't seen your family for five years? do you have children? how are you feeling about seeing them again?

>> the only live national news show at 11:00 eastern. >> we start with breaking news. >> let's take a closer look.

♪ ♪ >> it's 5:00 in the morning and the fishermen who have accepted a settlement are headed to the airport. the iom has provided them tickets back to myanmar. a journey that in one day will fly them over the ocean expanse that they fished for years. so the fishermen are going to be taking commercial flights back to myanmar. they are flying first to jakarta and then on to bangkok.

these men have lived together now for months. and for those who fish together, it's been even longer. but most of them, it's the first time they've sat on an airplane. >> almost all migrant workers are like the victims of trafficking. when they are being recruited the family is always in accident. >> cha cha is an advocate who work on behalf of trafficked immigrants in myanmar. >> especially when they come back the depression, so they cannot cope with their life when they are back. >> yangon airport, officials from myanmar's anti-trafficking police are here to greet the fishermen. the men will be provided shelter for tonight but tomorrow they're decades of military dictatorship

have made myanmar the second poorest country in asia after afghanistan. that's why so many here are willing to leave their families and entrust their fate to labor brokers who promise higher wages just across the border in thailand. we're headed to a small village outside yangon to visit the family home of fan, one of the men we met in yangon. the day before he reunited with his parents for first time in over a decade. >> how is he different from when he left home?

>> han's family wants to bring a legal case for his unpaid wages which at the say is $6,000 the equivalent of several year's salary. to date no such cases in myanmar have been successful. since 2011, at least 1500

trafficked fishermen have been repatriated to myanmar. in an analysis of about 400 of those cases, the ngo project isera determined on average, their compensation has amounted to only about $66 for every month they were enslaved. 88% of them received less than their promised salary or no compensation at all. >> it has been going on for years and decades. but there is no system in place to help fishermen. what they are expecting is to get the minimum wage that they are entitled to. what they have asked for is just a very small amount . >> back in yangon, we met another group of enslaved fishermen who were repatriated five months ago. all of them worked on thai ships in indonesia.

none have received compensation. these men are now unemployment, living with family. around working odd jobs -- and working odd jobs to survive. they told us that embassy officials from myanmar, thailand and indonesia had promised them their wages. >> this man spent seven years enslaved after his broker sold him onto a boat.

>> this man said his captain would pour engine oil on workers who slept too late. >> how do you feel about the people who eat the fish that you were catching under these conditions? v

>> the center of thailand's $7 billion seafood industry is the port just 30 miles from bangkok. every year, millions of pounds of fish are brought here, where they are process, packaged and shipped across the world. >> one of the most important ports for this in the world. feeding the world. >> president of the thai overseas fisheries association, which represents the major thai companies that fish abroad. these are men who were working for years and years on boats under extremely abusive conditions, not getting paid at all for any of that work.

>> most of the operators or the captains, they're not like that. i think that story is, a lot of them, are not true. >> you think a lot of the stories are not true? >> yeah, if you compared 50,000 vessels, you have, say, 1%, it's a lot. it's a lot. some actual -- some are not true. i don't see there's any more problem now and a lot of them have got paid already. >> the ones who received compensation say they should be getting a lot more money because of the years that they worked from the boat. >> i don't know how much they asked for. so i cannot answer this. but from my view as a fishing boat owner i would say the government put more than 100% effort to stop the human trafficking.

>> in the last two years both the united states and the european union down graded thailand in their rankings of countries that violate basic labor rights. the u.s. government has banned the importation of products with forced labor. and the eu has considered ba banning products worth more than $700 million. on paper at least, the thai government has agreed to increase inspections, we joined the marine police for one of their inspections in the mouth of the bay of thailand.

this team boarded three trawlers, all of which had thai captains and burmese crews. but according to the policing all of their paperwork was in order. it definitely looks like the thai police are doing more to crack down on trafficking at spot checks and looking at people's i.d.s but it's pretty hard to know if abuse was going on, on those ships. >> once you've got crew out there they're beyond the oversight of government, of industry. >> daniel murphy is a fisheries researcher who has worked for greenpeace and the environmental justice foundation. he says overfishing in thailand's waters have driven boats to fish in increasingly disability seas outside the

authorities. >> no way that anyone could say that these were isolated cases of abuse, where one person had got unlucky or one vessel captain was bad or one business was bad. it was a system. >> after ambon, thai authorities say that system is grinding to a halt. but in sa administrationasaka, distant water ships continue to arrive in port. these reefer ships, almost all of them have come back from indonesian waters over the past 18 months. it's nearly impossible to know for sure whether these ships have stopped gathering fish from trawlers using slave labor. >> a lot of fish are being landed by non-thai boats,

packaged in thailand and processed in thailand and then exported. >> this is a labor broker who used to be involved in trafficking burmese workers to thailand. he agreed to speak to us only on the condition that we hide his identity. the broker told us he believes as many as one fourth of those trafficked since that time remain enslaved at sea.

>> at the end of 2015, nestle, the largest food company in the world, acknowledged slave labor in its food chain. thai union, owner of chicken of the sea, john west, said it stopped using the suppliers that received fish from indonesia. but the question of direct compensation or reparation still remains. >> the issue of compensation needs to be addressed. and not just compensation in terms of lost wages, but compensation in terms of justice. consumers and the international

community have to accept some degree of responsibility. because the price we've been paying for those products has not reflected the true costs of that production. it hasn't taken into account the fact that people have been exploited and abused, to get that seafood onto the shelves of our local retailer. >> in the last five years at least 2500 trafficked fishermen have been rescued from indonesia. an estimate would be roughly $35 million in total. >> it's a huge amount of money. >> ten years of being at sea, working for 20 hours. and that will make a big change in their lives. and it will also stop people thinking that they are hopeless. it will empower them to start to

rebuild their life as a human being. who can support their family. who can support themselves. >>it's crazy money that you can make here. it's a ticking time bomb. >>do you know what chemicals have been in that tank? >> my big brother didn't wake up the next day. al jazeera america's... >> today they will be arrested. >>they're firing canisters of gas at us. >> we have to get out of here.

♪ welcome to the news hour, i'm johnna in brussels where they are arriving for an emergency summit with turkey to talk about the refugee crisis as thousands of refugees are stranded on the border between greece and macedonia. i'm in doha and stories we will be covering this hour under attack as they launch a raid across the border from libya. protest in ramallah and thousands are on strike for higher