An investigation into a small family-owned Scottish fishing firm has found that dozens of its workers may have been trafficked to the UK and been ‘treated like slaves’.
TN Trawlers and its sister companies, owned by the Nicholson family based in the small town of Annan on the southern coast of Scotland, are believed to have employed workers from the Philippines, Ghana, India and Sri Lanka. Thirty-five of them were recognised as victims of modern slavery by the Home Office after being referred to it between 2012 and 2020.
According to one migrant the BBC spoke to, about 30 seafarers arrived in the UK to join TN Trawlers between 2011 and 2013, mostly from the Philippines. They joined dredgers trawling for scallops along the UK coastline.
The man who spoke to the BBC said he was put to work on a boat he didn’t have a visa for and forced to work gruelling shifts of 18 hours a day for a monthly wage of £660. Others also described shortages of suitable clothing, food and water.
According to the BBC , the TN Group denied any allegation of modern slavery or human trafficking and said its workers were well treated and well paid.
The company was the focus of two long-running criminal investigations but no cases of human trafficking or modern slavery have come to trial, although some of the men waited years to give evidence.
While TN Trawlers’ lead director was under active investigation, TN Group companies continued to recruit new employees from across the world, the BBC reported.