Tortured slave returns home after 22 years

A man was overwhelmed with emotion as he returned home to his family after 22 years in slavery.

As a teenager, Myint Naing was tricked into becoming a slave on a fishing boat and told he would never see his family again.

When he eventually returned home to his native Myanmar, the emotion was almost too much to bear. For his mother, it was too much and she had to revived by neighbours after she collapsed. 

For Myint’s mother, the emotion was too much (Picture: AP)

Sadly, Myint’s story is not unique. In 1993, an agent promised him a job in Thailand that would allow him to feed his poverty-stricken family back home for a year in a matter of weeks.

But after arriving in Thailand, he was stripped to Tual, a far corner of Indonesia known for its rich fishing grounds.

He regularly worked 24 hours a day on small amounts of food and water.

When he begged his captain to let him go, he was chained to the ship and left to die.

Mying Naing was told he would never return home (Picture: AP)

He escaped twice, at one point living in the jungle and growing vegetables.

His freedom only came following an exposé by the Associated Press that prompted thousands of fishing slaves to be freed.

The fishing industry is a billion-pound trade. According to AP, much of the fish caught by slaves ends up in major supermarkets worldwide.