00:01These grain mussels are popular food across Indonesia.
00:07But the bay they come from is full of mercury, lead, and sewage
00:12that's slowly killing the mussels.
00:16Now, divers like Tajuddin can't easily find them.
00:28To survive, many fishermen are turning to predatory online lenders,
00:33sometimes based in China and the US.
00:37They charge high interest, trapping people like Tajuddin in a cycle of debt.
00:50To pay it off, entire families like Tajuddin's wife and 13-year-old son also need to work.
01:04Even then, they're often short on money, so they have to borrow from their bosses.
01:15So how did one of Indonesia's most popular seafoods become part of a system of modern-day slavery?
01:24And as the sea grows poisonous, what happens to the people who still depend on it?
01:36This is one of Jakarta's poorest areas.
01:41Locals call this neighborhood Green Mussel Village,
01:44named after the one life form that sustains almost every resident here,
01:50including 13-year-old Muhammad Hisiam Musyafa.
02:00Nearly every day for the past five years, he's sat beside his mother, Siti Komala,
02:07racing to shuck at least three kilos of muscles.
02:33But even with years of practice, Muhammad still gets hurt.
02:38He's got hurt.
02:43He's got hurt.
02:45He's got hurt.
02:45He's got hurt.
02:46He's got hurt.
02:47He's got hurt.
02:48He's got hurt.
02:48Despite that, Muhammad says he couldn't imagine spending his days any other way.
03:03The muscles he works on were pulled from the Jakarta Bay by his father, 42-year-old Taichuddin.
03:10Just a few years ago, he could still earn a living fishing near the dock.
03:23But now, there's trash all along the shore and in the water.
03:32Today, to earn anything from this bay, Taichuddin has to go far off shore, making the job much more dangerous.
03:41Ya, selalu saya pribadi, dibilang rasa takut itu memang ada.
03:47Ya, awal-awal lagi belajar pun sempat panik.
03:50Ya, mau nggak mau, suka nggak suka, enak nggak enak, ya saya tekunin terus.
03:55Dari pada saya nganggur.
03:58His brother claims their diving spot before dawn.
04:03This is the only way to make a living for those like Taichuddin, who didn't go to school past ninth
04:09grade.
04:11Nggak ada profesi lain lah, sampingan, atau yang lain lah.
04:16Saya putuskan, saya udah lah, kerja di laut.
04:21The mussel farm he works on is a line of buoys, anchored by ropes to the seabed.
04:42The creatures cling to the lines, growing in tight clusters.
04:47Taichuddin sometimes swims down 15 feet to reach them.
04:51The shells are razor sharp.
04:54So, divers wear gloves to protect their hands.
05:01Taichuddin stays under for about 45 minutes at a time, until his basket is full.
05:07He will sell the mussels back to his boss, who owns this farm.
05:11But at below market price, in exchange for being allowed to work here.
05:18Bebannya kan berat, ditaruh di pundak kan.
05:24Kan berulang-ulang, nggak sekali, dua kali.
05:27Itu yang bikin kita lelah, capek.
05:30Sampai kadang napas juga pegel.
05:31Mereka tinggal.
05:43In a single day, divers make this trip down and back up, about a dozen times.
05:54While he's diving,
05:55Dayudin's only air comes through a thin tube,
06:00connected to this rusty compressor that often breaks down.
06:05Dayudin has already seen 10 of his friends drown this way.
06:20I haven't seen it yet.
06:23When I took it, it was already finished.
06:28When I climbed up, I went to Perahu.
06:33Because of the pollution,
06:35just swimming here can cause cancer and skin diseases,
06:39especially if the water gets into open cuts.
06:51The skin of the skin is now back to normal,
06:54but the skin is not normal.
06:56But the name of the skin is already used,
07:01so it's already adapted.
07:04The native green mussels, on the other hand,
07:07are struggling to survive in the polluted Jakarta Bay.
07:10They are filter feeders,
07:12which means they survive by sucking food particles,
07:15even toxic ones, from the water.
07:17But they have limits, too.
07:20When mussels absorb too many heavy metals,
07:23like lead and mercury,
07:24they become deformed and can stop reproducing.
07:28At one point, researchers found deformities
07:31in about 60% of the mussels farmed in this bay.
07:34Eventually, populations begin to decline.
07:38And so do the incomes of these fishermen,
07:41who are forced to take out loans just to get by.
07:45Two years ago,
07:47Dajuddin borrowed the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars
07:50from an online lending service
07:52to pay for his children's schooling and other household bills.
07:55But he had to put up his boat as collateral.
07:58The deal was payback $58 a month.
08:02He isn't sure what the interest was,
08:05but experts say some online lenders charge up to 60%
08:09due with each monthly installment.
08:12If Dajuddin missed three payments,
08:15he'd lose the boat.
08:24With not much money coming in,
08:26Dajuddin had to give up his boat to pay his debt.
08:30Online loans have become common in his district,
08:33where thousands of people depend on the bay to get by.
08:37They suffer from high unemployment
08:40because of the severe environmental degradation.
08:45So the bank itself see that those kind of area is very risky.
08:49So it's very hard for them to apply for the bank loan.
08:53That's why workers have turned to online lenders instead.
08:57Between 2018 and 2025,
09:00the amount Indonesians borrowed annually from these services
09:03jumped from about $220 million to $5 billion.
09:08But many of these services are illegal
09:11and have ties to companies or operators abroad
09:15in places like China, Singapore, and the United States.
09:19They've stepped in to offer small loans,
09:22often just a few hundred dollars,
09:24that traditional banks typically won't provide.
09:27The Indonesian government can't do much
09:30because the money moves through informal transfer systems
09:34and middlemen.
09:35So it's hard to trace.
09:37The loans often come with steep interest
09:40that can be impossible to pay off.
09:43So when there is an overseas platform,
09:46of course they don't have office,
09:47they don't have employee in Indonesia,
09:49they try to use the third party debt collector,
09:52which is very, very dangerous.
09:55And then they use the third party
09:57to harass physically.
10:01Daichuddin has experienced that firsthand.
10:24So to pay off the online lenders,
10:27many fishermen turned to their employers.
10:30Daichuddin says his boss gave him a loan
10:32without charging any interest.
10:34But now he has to return to this toxic bay
10:38almost every day to pay off the debt.
10:43Jakarta Bay is one of the most polluted
10:45bodies of water on earth.
10:47Thirteen rivers flow into it,
10:50carrying with them untreated waste
10:52from dense neighborhoods and industrial zones.
11:10Environmentalists say pollution here has gotten especially bad
11:14since Indonesia passed the omnibus law in 2020.
11:17It was meant to create jobs by attracting foreign investors.
11:22But critics say it prioritized economic growth
11:25at the expense of environmental accountability.
11:28And that's one reason many factories that pollute
11:31never get audited or penalized.
11:34But that pollution has killed off at least 50% of fish species
11:39in Jakarta Bay since the 1970s,
11:41and about two-thirds of shellfish since the 1930s.
12:06These days, the men have to stay out in the toxic water
12:09twice as long as they used to,
12:11to catch the same amount of muscles.
12:14All to pay off the debt they owe to their bosses.
12:18Experts say this is a form of modern-day slavery.
12:23Workers have no way of fighting back.
12:2690% of them don't have written work contracts.
12:29So their bosses can get away with underpaying them.
12:34Deutsche Jozikin for example collects 15 saks a day,
12:38but is paid just 74 cents for each of them.
12:43We always always do to correct ourselves.
12:47When we are risred with our own brains,
12:49we are mentally offended by ourselves.
12:49We are thinking about introversion.
12:51Why am I like this?
12:52I can't see my life changing.
12:55Why am I like other people and like friends?
12:59I really think that I love it.
13:05Once the fishermen hand over their sacks, the mussels usually go to factories like this
13:12one, where workers boil them.
13:20Inside these giant cauldrons, heat kills the mussels and their shells pop open, making
13:27them easier to shuck.
13:39Dajudin's wife, Siti, has been peeling mussels at this factory for 12 years.
13:47She took the job after her husband's income could no longer feed the family.
13:52Now she helps keep food on the table.
13:55But when money runs short, Siti turns to the same fallback as her husband — borrowing.
14:02Like her husband, Siti says she tried to avoid borrowing from her boss, because she knows
14:12that kind of loan keeps workers tied to this factory.
14:24So Siti borrowed from the same online lending service that cost her husband their boat.
14:32She put up her motorcycle as collateral — the one her family would use to transport mussels.
14:37That allowed her to take out $290.
14:41She had to pay it back within six months.
15:07Siti had seen how the lenders physically threaten people if they couldn't pay up.
15:11So she decided to give up her bike.
15:23In fact, in the first half of 2025 alone, the Indonesian Financial Services Authority said
15:30it received almost 4,000 complaints about the behavior of online debt collectors.
15:38Siti usually works until 9 p.m.
15:42or until this pile is gone.
15:44The muscles she peels now just go toward paying back her debt.
15:49Without cash coming in, Siti can't even afford basic things like disinfectant to treat the
15:56cuts she and her son get from shucking all day.
16:05To afford a meal like this, she needs to ask for an advance.
16:10There's rarely any money left over when her children ask for a treat.
16:21She sells the shucked mussels to the supervisor who weighs them and pays her by the kilo.
16:28Sometimes, when the hall is smaller, Siti won't make more than $2 a day.
16:36The mussels arrive at larger factories where they're washed and sold for 17 cents per kilogram.
16:43But they're dangerous to eat.
16:47Surveys found microplastics in every single sample tested, and heavy metals in many of the
17:01muscles.
17:04Those substances may cause birth defects, paralysis, and even cancer.
17:26The Indonesian government has already issued public warnings.
17:32But for poorer families, avoiding these muscles isn't easy.
17:37They are one of the cheapest protein sources available.
17:41Much cheaper than beef, eggs, and sometimes even chicken.
17:46That's why people still buy them.
17:52Even restaurants like this one, which gets them fresh.
18:06Ahmad Sodikin has been preparing them at Babak's seafood restaurant for 11 years.
18:34Abdurrahman eats here about once a month.
18:55But lately, eating his favorite dish has raised a question he can no longer ignore.
19:01What is this costing his body?
19:07Siti has those same concerns sometimes as she prepares mussels for her family.
19:13But the food helps them scrape by when grocery money runs low.
19:28As muscle income continues to drop, the family has started selling the few possessions they
19:34have left at home for extra cash, something they try to hide from their children.
19:41One person is asked to take advantage of their children.
19:41They still don't understand, but they don't exist.
19:45They sometimes talk about it, it's not aCD.
19:47That's what I said.
19:49Like, it's not a team.
19:49It's not a motor, we can't go to the village.
19:53I can't go to the village, not wear motor, not wear a car.
19:55So they say, there are also things?
20:01And now they go to buy it again.
20:08Though Mohamed is just 13, he notices the things
20:13debt is slowly taking from them.
20:25His dream is simple, the freedom pollution has taken from him.
20:36You can play with friends on the floor.
20:39You can swim in the sea.
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