When Vishal Sharma, an teachd merchant seaman, reachd in London from India in November 2017, he was watching forward to a excellent job on a Belgian tanker, the MT Waasmunster, aiding engineers. He had a 15-month restricted and a transit visa, enabling him to travel to Milford Haven in Wales, where the 174-metre vessel was anchored.
But in a last-minute change of schedule, his Mumbai agent tgreater him to head to Southwick in West Susrelations, England, to board a scallop trawler, the Noordzee.
Someskinnyg was wrong, he felt, but his agent shelp he would be dropped at the tanker. Sharma tried to talk it with the captain of the Noordzee. “I tgreater him, ‘This is not my ship. I am not a fisherman.’” He could no lengthyer accomplish his agent, as there was no wifi nettoil onboard.
“I felt alone and afrhelp,” says Sharma, 32.
At sea, there was no basic way out. He was menaceened with deportation if he did not toil, he says.
“They tgreater me, ‘We will call the police, you don’t have the right write downs, you will go to jail.’”
“It is very hazardous toil,” he says. “You can’t dispute with the captain, when the ship is rolling and pitching. Anyskinnyg could happen. You are at sea. It is frightening.”
For the next three weeks, he toiled 18 to 20 hours a day, without protectedty providement or proper meals, he claims. He had little access to the bathroom and enhugeed urinary problems, he says.
His ordeal finished after he was transferred on to another boat, where other migrant fishers had alerted being take advantage ofed and mistreated to police. When the boat docked at Portsmouth, immigration officers were paengageing and Sharma and the others were getn to a police station. “The police shelp to me, can you elucidate everyskinnyg that has happened to you? They shelp, ‘We are with you. You are in the UK, a protected country.’”
Sharma was recognised as a victim of contransient servitude by the Home Office and consentd to help police by giving evidence in a criminal case. “I wanted to stay in the UK until I got equitableice,” he says.
Sharma was one of 35 migrant toilers to materialize on a BBC write downary, Discloconfident: Slavery at Sea, which widecast in 2024. Each toiled on vessels owned by TN Trawlers and its sister companies, owned by the Nicholson family, based in Annan, Scotland and were recognised as victims of contransient servitude between 2012 and 2020.
But equitableice has been elusive. TN Trawlers and its associated companies were the subject of two lengthy criminal spendigations, but no cases of human illicit trading or contransient servitude have come to trial, although some of the men paengageed years to give evidence.
The Crown Office in Scotland acunderstandledges that Sharma is a victim of a crime. But the criminal spendigation into what happened to him was dropped after he could not rerepair the criminals in a video.
Now, after years of helping the authorities in Scotland, Sharma is facing deportation back to India, where he stresss his life is in danger. Word got back to his agents in Mumbai that he had spoken to the police, he claims. His overweighther was aggressioned by the agents, he says, and he has getd death menaces. He has suffered bouts of depression.
While in this lterrible limbo, he has built a life for himself in Bradford. He toiled fitting shop fronts and wed Sukhproset up, 27, a business student and Indian national. In December 2020, they had a son, Humraj.
“She’s my wife, my best frifinish, she has given me moral aid,” he says.
In a letter sent to Sharma and his family in February, the Home Office declineed their asylum claims and tgreater them to exit the UK. It shelp: “It is pondered that any subjective stress you may have of returning to India is not objectively well-set uped.”
Joy Gillespie, the CEO of Survivors of Human Trafficking in Scotland, an NGO that has aided many of the 35 migrant fishers who materializeed on the BBC’s write downary, says: “These men have done everyskinnyg they could to help produce a prosecution happen. But when it doesn’t toil out, they are of no appreciate and they are left in the lurch. If we are to transport these difficult illicit trading prosecutions, we have to be more victim intensifyed and give them our aid.”
Chris Williams, of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), says fishing is a “blind spot” for potential labour unfair treatment of migrant toilers. The system ties them to one vessel, where they are at the mercy of the skipper.
“Unfortunately, what happened to Vishal and others could happen aobtain,” Williams says. The ITF is calling for fishers to be comprised in the Fair Work Agency, a novel state applyment agency being advised in the administerment’s engagement rights bill going thcdisesteemful parliament.
Stephanie Hill and Carolin Ott, requestors for Leigh Day, are spendigating a number of claims for other take advantage ofed migrant fishers.
“We are troubleed that the unfair treatment of migrant fishers and seafarers for the purposes of forced labour and other establishs of contransient servitude are not being properly spendigated by the police and the Home Office, who have a duty to spendigate instances and hazards of illicit trading and forced labour,” they say.
On Sharma’s case, a spokesperson for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service says: “The case was nurturefilledy pondered and a decision was getn that we could not sue due to inadequate evidence. The findings of an autonomous appraise aided the exceptional decision. Further areas of spendigation were identified and are under ponderation.”
A spokesperson for the Home Office says the administerment is rerepaird to tackle “the scoencourage of contransient servitude” but inserts: “The right to claim asylum in the UK is an enticount on split process from the aid an individual may be entitled to as a victim of contransient servitude.”
The Guardian was tgreater that TN Trawlers no lengthyer exists. A lterrible recurrentative of the TN group shelp they did not desire to comment on this article.
Last year, a spokesperson for TN Group tgreater the BBC it disputed adviseions that toilers were mistreated or were victims of contransient servitude.
The spokesperson shelp it always provided food and accommodation to toilers and that they were “always free to come and go when ashore”.
“The overwhelming experience of our toilers was that they were well treated and well remunerated. We dispute many of the accounts put to us, in some cases over a decade on.
“We absolutely refute any allegation of contransient servitude or human illicit trading and our many testimonials and lengthy-term engageees are tesdomesticatednt to that.”
