This piece seeks to shed light on labour hire practices off the coast of Indonesia, where fishing platforms called Jermals were once immensely popular. Children were marooned for months on these platforms and subject to dangerous conditions. The practice has since decreased, thanks to UN intervention. But it remains a dark and important ocean chapter. 

On the morning of October 14, 1990, the Malacca Straits lay awash with the Sumatran heat. The ocean and the sky were but one veil, gently dragged and stretched by a northerly. The two soulmates met upon the water’s edge and whispered and laughed with one another; the sea was to be soft today.   

Time passed, and a black bruise gradually transpired across the ocean’s brow. It became more intricate, a black cut-out from the horizon, a jagged puncture brought forth by an unseen orbit. The smudge remained motionless in the distance as the sea moved underneath it, advancing it to its destination, miles from port.   

The barge was a grimy, belching machine at the end of its life cycle. Its mechanical drone was sporadic and terminal. It was humiliatingly dragged onwards by a much younger compatriot—an orange tugboat. Sat atop the barge was a yellow excavator, surrounded by 20-metre logs, sharpened like stakes. The convoy came to a standstill.  

A group of men emerged upon the barge. They waved at the tugboat, and its captain waved back. They all assembled atop and watched as the excavator picked up the logs one by one and released them slowly into the ocean depths in a controlled manner. The men gathered close to the protruding stake and helped control its descent. They held the stake in place as the excavator released the log from its grasp, extended its arm above them, and hammered the stake deep into the ocean floor. The sea howled from eight metres below and then growled, and then nothing.   

This was repeated many times. The men reinforced the vertical stakes with horizontal logs tied to one another with filthy rusted chains. Large nets were installed, 10 metres by 20 metres. The men shouted ‘atangkul’ and ‘keroncong’. Gradually, a structure—part barricade, part nest, began to emerge.   

The men bickered and swore savagely throughout the day. They nearly came to blows. They ventured across and around the horizontal planks, multiplying the process, creating something of a platform the size of a tennis court. Sometimes, they would sit and smoke in silence and stare down into the ocean. One worker lay mesmerised at its depths until another worker flicked his cigarette at him. An eruption of coarse laughter.   

Towards one end of the platform, they left a sizeable gap, three metres by three metres. And on the other side, they erected a wooden shanty with a corrugated iron roof. One of them defecated inside, once more to the adulation of the others.   

The tugboat groaned as it repositioned itself around the barge for the return voyage. More shouting between the crew members. There was a struggle, and one was thrown overboard. Everyone hooted and applauded. The tugboat continued on, and the man was left behind in its wake, treading water.   

Something dark swam beneath him. Yelping, he thrashed and hacked at the water until he reached the platform. Sitting astride a plank, the man watched the sun set, the Jermal swaying to and fro. The barge continued back to shore, regressing to a black smudge upon the horizon. The sun descended like a blood-red orb, gorging itself upon the emptiness of the sea, the pink incandescent tide, and silence.   

2001, Medan City, North Sumatra  

Below the screaming traffic, the bus terminal shyly crept out from an overpass. Corrugated iron and neon lights and wiring like a sea urchin, curling out from underneath slabs of granite, gripping whatever it could. The nightlife and the traffic were constant, like the hum of enormous insects throughout the night. Green and white and orange busses sat orderly and dormant like sleeping beetles. Everything lay soaking and engorged in the primordial humidity.   

Despite the chaos and traffic, there was a stillness to the bus terminal. It was that loaded stillness you find in certain enclaves throughout screaming cities. The kind that felt unnatural and made you look around.   

A man stood smoking under a lamppost. He was relaxed and bore the style and tone of a patient person. He dropped his cigarette to the ground, stamped it out, and drew another, which he slowly lit. He exhaled and scanned the terminal coolly. The eyes of stray dogs and homeless children watched correspondingly from the shadows.   

From the night and the hum and the city and all its desperation, came three figures. An old plantation worker, his wizened wife, and their small son. The old man coughed and then spat blood. The shadow dogs licked their lips. The two men shook hands, and the wife nodded and smiled enthusiastically at whatever was said.   

They confirmed that they knew of the Governors circular and that the boy was an adult. The boy was to work, and the work was to make him a man. The conversation ended upon the satisfaction of all parties. The boy would work, and his sisters could go to school. It was simple. And that’s what a man does, he sacrifices. See you in three months said the father to the son. See you in three months he replied.   

The boy and the man sat on opposite ends of the small boat, avoiding one another’s gaze. Between them sat an abnormally still Rottweiler, its accusatory gaze boring into the child. It seemed to whimper at where it had ended up in life. The boat they shared was in a state of decay, chortling and gasping across the open ocean. Water slowly seeped through the rusted tin hull. This was not helped by the mists of light rain drifting aimlessly through the strait. It had soaked all the supplies stacked high in the boat.   

As the trio gradually progressed further out into the open sea, the swell grew harsher.  The rain and the sea began to become one.   

The Rottweiler continued to stare at the boy, white sea salt mixing with its slobber, dripping off its taut lips and jutting chin. It was a statue through the turbulence. The boy felt cold, his clothes sticking to his frame under his folded arms—more of an embrace. He didn’t know how to swim. It was impossible to see more than 100 metres ahead at any given time and in any given direction, so it was impossible to tell how far they had traversed offshore. But it felt like hours. He carried with him a small and worn Nike backpack with everything he owned.   

It loomed from the rains. On the horizon, splinters protruded from the sea. They gathered around a central point, where some sort of small building stood from among their entanglement.  It looked like a stockade, tribal and primitive battlements, ruins of some past thalassocracy.   

It grew clearer, eventually becoming a platform built upon pillars and stakes. The structure was not quite flat or steady. It seemed to sway in the swell. Not a single part of the construction stood straight or strong. It was simply exhausted. The outer posts bent inwards giving the impression that it was collapsing into itself, that it was recoiling and reeling and wincing from blows inflicted from actors all around.   

A line of posts stretched off aimlessly into the sea, each growing smaller. He could see movement on deck. Figurines going to and fro. The dog followed his gaze, slowly turning its head. It barked. One silhouette stopped moving and stared before hurriedly moving away.   

The man cut the engine, and they coasted alongside one of the pillars. They tied off, and the rope went stiff and creaked as the boat drifted into place. The platform was a lot bigger than the boy originally thought. The deck stood about five metres from the sea. All the under beams were coated in Molluscs and Crustacea and gave the impression of an animal hide, and that the construction was pretending to be made of wood. The huge stakes were bound with thick rope and coil wherever vertical met horizontal. It was immensely loud, the taut ropes creaking and snapping with each swell. Towards the centre, large nets sloped into the sea, draped from the centre of the platform. A rope ladder fell from above. The boy looked at the man, and he nodded at it. He put on his backpack and began to climb. He scaled upwards and saw that the water line reached three, maybe four, metres up the pillar. He hauled himself up and stood up.   

He immediately locked eyes with three boys staring at him. They all stood in the entranceway to a hall of sorts, smoking with a deathly stillness. Nobody moved. He waved limply and pathetically. He received no response. The man hauled himself up and broke the scene.   

‘Get the shit,’ he snapped, and the three broke away with a surprising dexterity and animation. The boy stepped aside, flinching slightly, as they thundered past. One went into the boat, one on the ladder and one on deck—and they began to haul the supplies onto the deck. The boy stood awkwardly looking around, shivering slightly. This soaking wreck was his new home for the next three months.  

About the size of a tennis court, it was essentially a compilation of rickety curled planks. Some were missing, and the ocean swirled below. There were no barriers. Protruding stakes marked the edge. The main feature of the jermal was a sizeable hole opposite the building where nets sat tied up. They were attached to rollers on deck. There were two more on separate edges. He felt a shove, and he looked around. The man grunted at him and nodded to the building. The boy walked forward hesitantly. The man pushed him again, and he entered.   

The shack was an open hall of sorts. The walls were warped, and some planks were missing entirely. The rain pounded the corrugated iron roof. The first thing that hit him was the aggressive stench of fish. He could feel it settling in his hair and in his mouth. Vats and boiling equipment sat in one corner, a bench in another. ‘2001’ lay etched high above it all.   

In one corner was a chair and a small table with a tiny wind-up radio. There was no toilet and no kitchen. Mats lay bundled up alongside plastic bags and other supplies. It was a construction site filled with ants, geckos and spiders.    

The man corralled the boys together. They had come from villages like Dolok Masihal, Sei Barobang, Tanjung Balai and Se Lang Buah; and now they all squatted and stood around smoking and slovenly leaning against appliances and walls as if to preserve what little energy they could. They seemed exhausted in a way he had never seen before, the kind that brims atop their eyes. When they look at you, the flatness is striking. Hardened eyes, furrowed brows. Wrinkles from frowning. There was an emotional despondency. Their shirts and shorts dripped steadily in the heat. One boy had a ripped t-shirt with the phrase ‘my dog ate my homework’. None wore shoes. They were a strong crew of young boys. They were stocky, scarred and had abnormally developed muscles beyond their years, except for one boy who sat mute on the floor. He was disabled.   

‘This is the new worker. Make sure he knows what he is doing’. They nodded and stared at the boy. ‘Back to work’.