Freeing Slaves from the High Seas
In May 2015, former slave fisherman Myint Naing, 40, was reunited with his family after 22 years. He was among hundreds of former slave fishermen who returned to Myanmar following an Associated Press (AP) investigation into the use of forced labor in Southeast Asia’s seafood industry. The persistent, meticulous, and sophisticated investigation by a team led by Martha Mendoza traced slave-produced seafood from Asia to major U.S. supermarkets, restaurants, and food suppliers, and resulted in the freeing of 2,000 slaves. This spring, the project earned the 170-yearold news agency its first Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, Mendoza’s second Pulitzer Prize.
A key piece of the reporting was a stunning image captured by DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite of a slave boat transferring its catch to a commercial fishing vessel in the middle of the ocean. An escaped slave corroborated that the boat was the one on which he had been forced to work.