Saving Seafood

Canada lags behind on efforts to address human rights abuses in seafood supply chains

January 26, 2024 — Seafood has become a source of concern for consumers who pay attention to the environmental and social impacts of what they buy. Climate change is adversely affecting ocean ecosystems, and a series of widely publicized scandals have exposed widespread illegal fishing and awful working conditions in both fishing and seafood processing.

Seafarers in fishing often work 18 hours a day in what is widely considered to be the world’s most dangerous profession. Many are at sea for months or even years at a time, and most have no access to Wi-Fi. They are often excluded from labour laws and all are paid very low wages, despite producing food for high-income consumers.

Similarly, those working in seafood processing are also poorly paid, and many are migrant workers who lack basic labor rights.

In response to these concerns, governments in many seafood importing countries have taken action. The European Union and Japanese government have banned imports of seafood produced by illegal fishing, while the United States’ program to ban imports produced by forced labour includes seafood.

Read the full article at SALON

‘Marine conservation talks must include human rights’: Q&A with biologist Vivienne Solís Rivera

March 29, 2022 — Human rights, such as those of small-scale fishers, must be included in the global conservation goal to protect 30% of the world’s lands and oceans by 2030, say environmentalists, otherwise this proposed conservation target will fail and the livelihood of Indigenous people and local communities (IPLCs) around the world will be jeopardized.

This is the urgent message in a new open letter directed at policymakers gathered in Geneva this month to finalize the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which will be presented at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) conference, COP15, in China this April.

The open letter – created by the IPLC marine conservation organization Blue Ventures and signed by fishers, farmers, conservationists, environmentalists, human rights advocates and scientists around the world – refers explicitly to Target 3 of the framework, also known as 30×30. This target has been lauded internationally as an ambitious goal to protect 30% of the world’s lands and oceans by 2030, as the world faces a biodiversity crisis and mass species extinction.

But authors of the open letter point out that simply creating more reserve areas without IPLC inclusion is a flawed strategy. Too often, protected areas lead to displacements of IPLCs in the name of nature conservation.

Read the full story at Mongabay

More than 100 scientists call on Congress to end illegal fishing, human rights abuses in seafood supply chain

December 13, 2021 — More than 100 scientists on Monday called for federal action on illegal fishing, fraud and human rights abuses in the seafood industry.

In a letter to Congress, scientists called on representatives to end harmful practices along the seafood supply chain, including illegal, unreported and unregulated — or IUU — fishing and abuses like forced labor and human trafficking.

Human rights abuses and IUU fishing typically go hand in hand, scientists write, because unsustainable fishing practices push vessels further out to sea for longer periods of time, meaning some fishing companies rely on forced or underpaid labor to turn a profit.

“The interconnected issues of IUU fishing and human rights violations demand the United States take action to ensure that only safe, legally caught, responsibly sourced, and honestly labeled seafood is imported into our domestic market. The human rights abuses prevalent in the seafood sector make it clear that the United States needs to build in labor protections for those working at every stage in the seafood supply chain,” the letter’s authors write.

Read the full story at The Hill

 

With support of Walmart Foundation, FishWise increases focus on human rights in seafood

February 6, 2020 — The Santa Cruz, California, U.S.A.-based nonprofit FishWise has received a substantial grant from The Walmart Foundation to increase its work to address modern-day slavery and labor abuse in seafood supply chains.

The USD 934,000 (EUR 848,800) grant will allow FishWise to increase seafood industry engagement through its RISE platform while increasing the impact of the platform by aligning it with other international initiatives. RISE (an acronym for “Roadmap for Improving Seafood Ethics”) is a publicly available, open platform initiative that supports seafood companies’ evaluation and monitoring of their product and supply chains.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Rights Abuses Still ‘Widespread’ In Thailand’s Fishing Industry, Report Says

January 23, 2018 — Forced labor, human trafficking and other rights abuses are “widespread” in the Thai fishing industry, according to a new Human Rights Watch report that provides an update on a sector that has been cited for enabling slavery conditions.

In recent years, reports have emerged that detail forced labor and confinement on ships that make up Thailand’s large fishing fleet, where migrants from Thailand’s neighbors, such as Myanmar and Cambodia, are often victimized. Past reports have found prison-like conditions; the new report details how workers are often paid below the minimum wage, are not paid on time, and are held in debt.

Despite scrutiny from U.S. and European monitors and the Thai government’s public promises to clamp down, the abuses remain a big part of Thailand’s fishing industry, according to the report.

From Bangkok, Michael Sullivan reports for NPR’s Newscast unit:

“Under Thai law, migrant laborers are not entitled to Thai labor law protection. …

“The European Union has warned Thailand it could face a seafood export ban and the U.S. has placed Thailand on the Tier 2 Watch List in its latest trafficking in persons report.”

The 134-page report from Human Rights Watch is titled “Hidden Chains: Forced Labor and Rights Abuses in Thailand’s Fishing Industry. Compiled from interviews with 248 current and former fishers, it includes several quotes from workers.

“I didn’t know what was going on when I arrived,” trafficked Burmese worker Bang Rin said in March of 2016. “They just put me in a lockup, and it was only when the boat came in that I realized that was where I’d have to work. I went to do my pink card application on the 4th, and on the 5th I was out on the boat.”

The HRW says the research was conducted from 2015 to 2017, when its staff members visited all of Thailand’s major fishing ports.

Read the full story at New England Public Radio (NEPR)