Catch of the day caught by slaves?

 

Chris Kelly/theguardian.com 

Is anyone else like me and wondered, while at a restaurant or traveling about in a new country, where did my meal just come from? How did it get on this plate? If you're like me, this blog post is meant for you. I will be talking about industrial fishing with their human rights abuses.

                                                                    

The average consumer may not realize it, but the fishing industry is rife with horrific human rights abuses. Simply putting a meal on the table or dining out, you may also be helping sustain patterns of exploitation and abuse at sea. Buying seafood from a sustainable source is oftentimes a misnomer. In 2025, seafood that was certified as environmentally sustainable constituted 14% of global seafood production, compared to just 0.05% in 2005 (Teh, 2020). The demand for sustainable seafood is fantastic, but the demand to end exploitative labor practices in the seafood supply chain, including slavery and human trafficking, clearly demonstrate a systemic disregard for human well-being within sectors of the fishing industry. The intricate web of connections separates the fish we eat from the men who catch it, which obscures the brutal truth: our seafood may come from slaves (Mcdowell, 2015). 

Thai and Burmese fishing boat workers sit behind bars inside a cell at the compound of a fishing company in Benjina, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

“All I did was tell my captain I couldn’t take it anymore, that I wanted to go home,” said Kyaw Naing, his dark eyes pleading into an Associated Press video camera sneaked in by a sympathetic worker. “The next time we docked,” he said nervously out of earshot of a nearby guard, “I was locked up.”

President Obama was addressing the concerns of present-day slavery, saying, "It's the migrant worker unable to pay off the debt of his trafficker. The man lured here with the promise of a job, his documents then taken." referring to poor migrants in general but the comparison and his allusion to those on fishing boats are relevant and accurate (Couper, 2015). When cheap labor is scarce domestically, vessel owners turn to migrant workers, using unskilled migrant workers to reduce costs for operations, and workers are willing to accept low-paying jobs and work in dangerous conditions. Migrant workers have no protections or advocates, and often there is a language barrier, so they find themselves isolated, which makes them much more vulnerable to labor abuse and trafficking. In 2012, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that fishermen on a South Korean-flagged ship were forced to work up to 30-hour shifts in horrendous and deplorable working conditions while subjected to physical and sexual abuse (Skinner, 2012). AP reported that Burmese men are trafficked to remote islands off the coast of Indonesia and Thailand, where they are subjected to egregious living conditions, slavery, and sometimes even death. I provided a video below from the 18-month-long report, which won the journalist a Pulitzer Prize for their heroic expose. 

                                                    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQroCVs01SI (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

The fisheries that commit a crime are similar to drug trafficking and human trafficking, with the governments often times covering up crimes due to the subsidies these governments give to fishing companies. Fishers and observers can be highly vulnerable at sea, far out of sight of law enforcement agencies, or without help from family or friends. A perpetuation of discrimination, denial of fair access and sharing of benefits, and threatening food and livelihood security in fishing communities, these actions are essentially infringements of people's economic, social, and cultural rights which have the goal of protecting individual freedoms required to live a dignified life (Teh, 2020). The Thai government has no safeguards in place for preventing or curbing trafficking. According to the report by Hodal from the Guardian Thai Royal Marine police are not allowed to patrol more than 12 miles from shore. A policeman stated "We know there are slave laborers out there in Indonesian and Malaysian waters who are being abused, but I can't go there. I don't have the authority. All I can do is pressure the boat owners. If I go [into international waters] I will get shot at by the [relevant] authorities." 

                                                        
 

Supri from Indonesia, was on board a Taiwanese vessel when he was locked in a freezer by the captain while he was still wet from the shower.

“It was so cold inside. He did it on purpose. I shouted ‘Captain! Captain!’ Begging him to open [the door]. I kicked at it, but still he kept it locked. I was afraid, afraid of death. If I die, who will take care of my kid and my wife?”

Case Study: Aung Myo

"I was looking for ways to help my family. This broker knew I was looking for work. He said he could find me a job in Thailand. All I had to do was pay a 12,000 baht fee. There was probably around 700 of us. Old men, teenage girls, everyone. We travelled in a convoy in pick-up trucks. Then we trekked for days through the jungle. There was no food. Some died on the way, others got left behind. When I saw the fishing boats, I realised I’d been sold.

My first day I got so sick I couldn’t work. They hit me and kicked me and tortured me, and they beat me nearly every day after that. Sometimes the captain would scream at me and point his gun in my face. There were 12 of us on the boat and almost all of us had been trafficked.

One night, two guys tried to escape. The skipper caught one, beat him, tortured him and gave him electric shocks. Then he shot him and kicked him into the sea.

Six months passed and I still hadn’t been paid. The captain said my broker’s fee had doubled, so I decided to escape. There was no difference for me any more between life and death. I tied a buoy around my waist and swam towards the lights."

Aung Myo, 29, from Burma spoke to Kate Hodal

“The government knows in Thailand that there’s a problem, but they’re not taking action. There is no connectivity between labor inspectors and law enforcement to hold traffickers to account. And, actually, the government is often complicit with corruption.”- Mark Lagon former US ambasador combating human trafficking 

Given the global transboundary nature of fisheries and seafood chains, the international policy seems to be a prominent place to look for human rights and labor protections for all workers in the industry. Policymakers in the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nation's International Labor Organization (ILO), and the Food and Agriculture Organization adopted various VOLUNTARY measures, treaties, and conventions about human rights and trafficking in fisheries, some of which do include enforcement mechanisms. However, International policy implementation generally relies upon national-level policy adoption and enforcement, which we have seen time and time again simply does not happen. Another major contributor to the vulnerability of fishers at sea arises from the exclusion of fishing vessels and personnel from key provisions within maritime safety standards and international conventions. Human trafficking continues to happen on a global scale, despite numerous international treaties intended to reduce to overhaul it entirely- which is the nature of those treaties. Accountability or punitive measures for countries that have stopped complying with treaties are minimal. 

moving forward with this blog- I am dedicating all my time and resources to the fishing industry, including the sustainability movement, the lack of accountability for human rights abuses, including slavery and murder, and how it is destroying the ocean. 

Works cited:

Couper, A., Smith, H. D., & Ciceri, B. (2015). Getting a Crew by Dubious Contracting and Slave Trafficking. In Fishers and Plunderers: Theft, Slavery and Violence at Sea (pp. 121–137). Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183p451.15

Hodal, K., Kelly, C., Lawrence, F., 2014. Revealed: Asian Slave Labour Producing Prawns for Supermarkets in US, UK. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/ global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-prawns-thailand-produced-slave-labour. H.R. 644 — 114th Congress: Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. 

McDowell, Robin., Mason, Margie., Mendoza, Martha. (2015). AP Investigation: Slaves may have caught the fish you bought. https://www.ap.org/explore/seafood-from-slaves/ap-investigation-slaves-may-have-caught-the-fish-you-bought.html

Skinner, E.B., February 23, 2012. The Fishing Industry’s Cruelest Catch. Bloomberg Businessweek. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-02-23/the-fishing-industryscruelest-catch.

Teh LCL, Caddell R, Allison EH, et al. (2019) The role of human rights in implementing socially responsible seafood. Plos ONE 14(1): e0210241. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210241