[p2p-research] Fwd: TLC film on Web - the 2009 Blueberry Fiasco in Sweden

Sun Jun 13 05:58:19 CEST 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: gryf <gryf at riseup.net>
Date: Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 2:05 AM
Subject: Fwd: TLC film on Web - the 2009 Blueberry Fiasco in Sweden
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>

Begin forwarded message:

From: junya <junya at thailabour.org>
> Date: June 11, 2010 9:53:16 PM GMT+03:00
> To: junya <junya at thailabour.org>
> Subject: Fwd: TLC film on Web - the 2009 Blueberry Fiasco in Sweden
>
> Dear friends,
>> TLC is starting to upload our documentaries on the web. Here is our latest
>> documentary 'the 2009 Blueberry Fiasco in Sweden. More is coming. .
>>
>> Detail of the documentary is below.  See the film please follow the link
>> http://vimeo.com/12489782
>>
>> Enjoy watching,
>>
>> In solidarity,
>>
>> Lek...
>>
>>
>>
>> **********************************
>>
>> The 2009 Blueberry Fiasco
>>
>> in Sweden
>>
>> **********************************
>>
>> A film from the
>>
>> Thai Labour Campaign
>>
>> in cooperation with the
>>
>> Network Against Exploitation and Trafficking of Migrant Workers
>>
>> and the
>>
>> Migrant Workers Union (Thailand)
>>
>>  support by International Labour Organisation  (Asia-Europe
>> Anti-Trafficking Project)
>>
>> **********************************
>>
>> Narration ONE  -  background - rural farming scenery / people as
>> backgrounds
>>
>> This film tells the tale of how a family-based activity between Thailand
>> and Sweden became a labour trafficking business.
>>
>> The story began more than ten years ago.
>>
>> The film takes-up the story in the closing months of 2008.
>>
>> This is the time of year when labour recruiting agencies in Bangkok - and
>> also from overseas - start sending agents and brokers to the poorest
>> villages to recruit people into their trafficking business - especially from
>> the poor farming villages of the Korat Plateau in the North-East, which,
>> partly encircled by the Mekong River, is know locally and lovingly as
>> ‘Isan’.
>>
>> These agencies are specialists in exploiting the dreams of oppressed
>> farmers.
>>
>> Their business is based on building and selling false expectations - and
>> their pamphlets and arguments are based on only the most successful cases of
>> migrant labour.
>>
>> Profit in hundreds of thousands is possible they say. If villagers sign-up
>> to migrate as teams - even in millions.
>>
>> The agents often manage to sign-up dozens of people from the same small
>> village. In one village nearly 100 people were recruited - half the
>> population of the village. And many villagers sign as husband and wife
>> teams, or as a team of 3 or 4 or 5 family members.
>>
>> Even people of 60 years can find themselves being encouraged to sign-up -
>> by agents and brokers who bear no responsibility at all.
>>
>> By July 2009 - four Thai labour recruiting agencies - working together
>> with agencies in Sweden - had managed to sign-up 5 911 villagers for the
>> berry-picking in Sweden.
>>
>> Almost all came from farming families -> honest people that know the
>> meaning of hard work.
>>
>> All paid a Fee of from 1 700 to 2 200 Euro - directly to their recruiting
>> agency - for processing travel arrangements, but the average cost of
>> travelling to Sweden - including all under-table-payments - amounted to
>> about 2 300 Euro.
>>
>> For most small farmers this sum is equal to one year of income.
>>
>> At the end of July 2009 about 8,000 men and women from Thailand flew to
>> Sweden to pick wild blueberry.   Another 2 500 went to Finland.
>>
>> In other words - about 10 000 people from the small farms of sub-tropical
>> Thailand - from one of the most fertile regions of the planet - travelled
>> about 20 000 kilometres - to pick berries near the Arctic Circle - to
>> supplement the income at home.
>>
>> Narration TWO / farming cycle graphic
>>
>> There are millions of small farmers in Thailand that live with the
>> seasons. Especially in the North-East - in Isan, small farmers must deal
>> with a severe dry season - many months of drought between harvest and
>> planting - and especially these days now that  all the trees have gone and
>> the landscape is open.
>>
>> This difficult period in the farming-cycle has been - an is - greatly
>> exasperated by the persistent, misled Green Revolution policies of the Thai
>> Government - of agricultural policies that promote the planting of
>> high-yield cash-crops - that require massive amounts of irrigation and
>> expensive fertilizer - policies that undermines the diversity, wisdom and
>> sustainability of small-scale farming.
>>
>> This combination of factors means that, for nearly half the year, most
>> members of small farmer families, millions of people, must look for income
>> by selling their labour far from home.
>>
>> INDEBTEDNESS
>>
>> 86.7% of Thai farmers are indebted: 42.8% from agricultural investments
>> and 22.8% from household needs, with an average debt / family of 243 000
>> Baht, of which 44% of the debt is with private money-lenders.
>>
>> Narration THREE / trafficking chain as background
>>
>> Worn-down by endless struggle with the impossible agricultural policies of
>> the central bureaucracy in Bangkok, small farmers in Thailand became easy
>> prey to labour trafficking agencies.
>>
>> Thailand’s private labour recruiting agencies currently function as an
>> unofficial arm of Thai Government policy to promote outward labour
>> migration.
>>
>> This has resulted in the institutionalisation of a closed, self-generating
>> circle of corrupt labour policies and corrupt administration.
>>
>>  With no authority to hold these agencies responsible and accountable for
>> the great amount of suffering and losses they cause, Thailand’s 2 to 3
>> hundred private labour recruiting agencies are able ride on a cash business
>> that has a turn-over of some 800 million Euro per annum - by sucking cash
>> from the poor.
>>
>> Most of the Thai workers that went to Sweden in 2009 managed to pick
>> enough berries to cover their expenses - but - after one month of
>> berry-picking - hundreds recognised that they were not able to cover even
>> their living costs in Sweden - let alone earn enough to pay back the money
>> they had borrowed to go to Sweden.
>>
>> At the end of August  - 400 Thai pickers decided they must return to
>> Thailand without delay.
>>
>> Narration FOUR / . . background.
>>
>> The Migrant Workers Union is demanding that the Thai Government take
>> action to relieve the acute, financial distress of hundreds of indebted
>> berry-pickers - and take action to terminate the ability of private labour
>> recruiting agencies to squeeze cash from Thailand’s struggling small
>> farmers.
>>
>> The blueberry business in Northern Scandinavia - 8 000 km from Thailand -
>> has dragged thousands of Thailand’s small-scale farmers - along with their
>> families - into deeper debt than they already face.
>>
>> Thai government policy is famous for ignoring - if not directly oppressing
>>  - the ‘poverty-cycle’ of Thailand’s rural villages and small-scale farmers.
>>
>> And, so far, the Swedish Government has also shown no real understanding -
>> or concern - for the struggle of Thailand’s small farmer communities.
>>
>> The 2009 Blueberry Fiasco cannot be allowed to repeat itself in 2010.
>>
>> Like any government, the Thai Government has a primary duty to look after
>> the interests of Thai people, especially poor people.
>>
>> This means, in this case, weeding-out the corruption that surrounds the
>> labour recruiting agencies - and eliminating all tacit agreements and
>> licensing that allows private agencies to profit by milking cash from the
>> poor.
>>
>> The Swedish Government must also take a more responsible attitude to the
>> lessons of the 2009 Blueberry Fiasco - by making itself more alert to the
>> causes of legalised human trafficking.
>>
>> Decisions about the practical and financial arrangements for the 2010
>> blueberry season in Sweden have still to be decided.
>>
>> The Migrant Workers Union has informed the Thai Government that it is
>> prepared to make all the travel arrangements for the 2010 berry-picking
>> season on a non-profit basis - in order to be able to investigate and
>> pioneer a non-exploitative model.
>>
>> The Migrant Workers Union has requested the Thai Government to subsidise
>> the travel to Sweden of those farmers who need to participate in the 2010
>> blueberry picking season - to be able to earn money to re-pay their debts
>> from the 2009 season.
>>
>> Further to all of this - there is a distinct need to analyse the
>> Thailand-Sweden berry-picking activity in terms of the ecological footprint
>> it leaves on the planet - and in terms of impact on sustainable development.
>>
>> Is this activity promoting sustainable development for small farmers in
>> Thailand?
>>
>> Can a Nordic blueberry industry be built on labour imported from Thailand
>> and Vietnam - - not to mention pickers from places like Mongolia?
>>
>>
>> Moving away from the causes of the 2009 Blueberry Fiasco
>>
>> - to a mutually-beneficial, sustainable solution -
>>
>> - requires a well- informed, sensitive approach and the honest, pro-active
>> interest of both
>>
>> Thai and Swedish Governments.
>>
>>
>>
>>  ********
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

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