II. On Land: Abuses at Human-Trafficking Camps and Houses in Thailand and Malaysia
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Traffickers held 20-year-old “Fatima,” her husband and their one-year-old child for four months in
a human-trafficking camp in Thailand in 2014 while Fatima was pregnant. She told Fortify Rights:
[The traffickers] demanded an additional 7,000 Malaysian Ringgit (US$2,000) per person. The
dallals beat people who couldn’t pay. I saw so many people beaten by the dallals in the camp
because they couldn’t pay. The dallals beat me two times in the camp because we couldn’t pay.
They hit me with sticks on my back. My husband was also beaten. The dallals forced the women
and children to stand outside the plastic sheet when it rained as a form of punishment.161
According to survivors, traffickers commonly carried knives, sticks, pipes, and other weapons—
including guns—which they used to beat and threaten their captives.162
A 28-year-old Rohingya man from Myanmar’s Maungdaw Township in Rakhine State told
Fortify Rights how traffickers beat him with a rod after trafficking him from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
to Thailand. He said:
It took 28-days [to get to Thailand] by boat. Many people were beaten by the dallal. In Thailand,
I was in a camp for more than a month. The dallal beat me, until I could pay them. They beat
me with a rod. I was beat until I was bloody. I had to pay the dallal 8,000 Malaysian Ringgit
(about US$2,200) to get released . . . My family paid for my release.163
“Abdul Haman,” 17, told Fortify Rights:
People who couldn’t pay the money were beaten. If they told the dallals, “I can put the money
into the account tomorrow,” then the dallals said, “You are lying,” and they would beat them.
Some people were beaten in the back or on their head. Three people were hit in the head and
were bleeding . . . Before I heard from my father, I didn’t have any contact with anyone and
the dallals beat me.164
A middle-aged Rohingya man, “Anwar,” told Fortify Rights in 2017 of lasting injuries from beatings
he experienced in human-trafficking camps in late 2014:
After we got to Thailand, I could not pay ransom money to the dallal in the camp. The dallal
beat me with a wood stick on my chest and my back. After the beating, I was coughing, and
blood came out. My whole body was swollen . . . Since I was beaten by the dallal, the pain
stays . . . I cannot work because I have pain in my whole body. I sometimes can’t pay rent, and
my leg is unstable.165
Fifteen-year-old “Noor Wai” told Fortify Rights: “The men were all abused. [The traffickers would]
tie their hands and beat them very bad. Some people tried to escape, and [the traffickers] would
catch them and bring them back and handcuff them and beat them again very badly.”166
Traffickers punished anyone who attempted to escape from captivity with particularly severe
beatings. Nineteen-year-old “Yusuf” witnessed several attempted escapes during his three-and-ahalf months in a human-trafficking camp in Thailand. He told Fortify Rights:
Three people from Buthidaung [in Rakhine State, Myanmar] tried to escape. They tried to
get a car, and the dallals captured them and brought them back to the camp and beat them.
The dallals captured them near the car. The Thais brought them to the middle of a circle, and
161 Fortify Rights interview with #75, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 27, 2014.
162 See, for example, Fortify Rights interview with #77, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 27, 2014.
163 Fortify Rights interview with #142, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, February 2, 2019.
164 Fortify Rights interview with #81, Penang State, Malaysia, September 15, 2014.
165 Fortify Rights interview with #143 Selangor, Malaysia June 15, 2017.
166 Fortify Rights interview with #69, Penang State, Malaysia, October 1, 2014.