I. At Sea: Abuses on Human-Trafficking Ships in the Bay of Bengal 38 When I got to the boat, I saw emaciated children and saw their hunger and saw how the parents of these kids couldn’t feed them. When it is dinnertime, they have nothing. This made me feel great sorrow. They were drinking their urine and, for three months, didn’t bathe. They pantomimed that they were drinking their own urine. The kids showed me with their hands that they were drinking their urine.81 In this case, Thai authorities allowed Chaiwut Chusakun and others to deliver food and water to the survivors on board before towing the ship out to sea.82 The Thai authorities did not allow the ship to disembark in Thailand, escort the survivors to safety, or provide proper medical and humanitarian support to the survivors.83 The Thai authorities also did not appear to investigate whether human traffickers remained on board the ship.84 As the scale of human trafficking from Myanmar to Malaysia increased in 2014 and 2015, Fortify Rights documented how traffickers outfitted some ships with seawater-desalination systems to convert seawater to drinking water, enabling traffickers to keep their captives alive at sea for longer periods of time.85 “Arifah,” 27, and her five children spent 50 days confined to limited space on board a humantrafficking ship with minimal rations of food and de-salinized water after traffickers were forced to return to Myanmar following the regional human-trafficking “crackdown.”86 She told Fortify Rights: They would give us a very little amount of food with two green chilies. They also gave the men two small dried fish, but the women refused to eat the fish, because it smelled very bad, so they stopped giving it to us . . . I purchased 15 water bottles [to bring with me on the journey], but when I arrived, the crew took all the bottles. However, on the boat, they treated the salt water to fresh water, so there wasn’t any problem in getting water.87 81 Fortify Rights interview with Chaiwut Chusakun, Songkhla Province, Thailand, May 17, 2015. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 Fortify Rights interview with #122, Rakhine State, Myanmar, May 20, 2015. 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid.