Saving Seafood

Indonesia issues long-delayed rules to protect migrant fishing workers

June 14, 2022 — Indonesia has issued a much-anticipated decree to boost the protection of Indonesian deckhands working aboard foreign commercial and fishing vessels.

The move comes in response to a pending lawsuit accusing the government of failing to enshrine protections that could have prevented a long history of abusive and even deadly treatment of these sailors.

The government says the regulation ratified on June 8 by the administration of President Joko Widodo is designed to streamline the recruitment and placement process of Indonesian migrant deckhands, and improve measures to protect their labor rights. The government decree, a derivative of the country’s 2017 law on migrant worker protection, is applicable to foreign commercial and fishing vessels, including distant-water boats.

A key change introduced in the new regulation includes having the Ministry of Manpower as the official authority to produce the permit for recruitment agencies to assign candidate migrant workers. Previously, the Ministry of Transportation could also issue a similar permit. Many observers have called out the overlapping authorities for undermining legal protections for the migrant deckhands.

Read the full story at Mongabay

Indonesia’s President Visits Island in Waters Disputed by China

January 9, 2020 — President Joko Widodo visited an island in waters disputed by China on Wednesday to assert Indonesia’s sovereignty amid a standoff between Indonesian and Chinese vessels.

The confrontation began in mid-December when a Chinese coast guard vessel and fishing boats, entered waters in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, off the coast of the northern Natuna islands, prompting Jakarta to summon Beijing’s ambassador.

Widodo told reporters on Natuna Besar island that the disputed waters belong solely to Indonesia.

“We have a district here, a regent, and a governor here,” he said. “There are no more debates. De facto, de jure, Natuna is Indonesia.”

Widodo also met with fishermen on the island. Earlier this week, Indonesia deployed more ships and fighter jets to patrol the surrounding waters. Nursyawal Embun, the director of sea operations at the Maritime Security Agency, said as of Wednesday morning that two Chinese coast guard vessels remained, while 10 Indonesian ships were on patrol.

Read the full story from Reuters at The New York Times

Indonesia to Sink 71 Foreign Fishing Boats Amid South China Sea Tensions

August 16, 2016 — Indonesia will cap Wednesday’s Independence Day celebrations by scuttling as many as 71 impounded foreign vessels — mostly Vietnamese but also a handful of Chinese — to signal its determination to protect its sovereignty over lucrative fishing grounds in the South China Sea.

The destruction of the boats comes amid simmering regional tensions over territorial disputes in the water. Former Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said the main challenge facing the country was to ensure the message wasn’t misinterpreted.

Natalegawa said the signal has to be conveyed that Indonesia is determined to protect its national sovereignty and territorial integrity. “But some of the risk in our region nowadays is precisely the risk of misperception, miscalculation, minor incidents becoming bigger crises,” he said in a telephone interview last week. “The region as a whole should not lose the habit of open dialogue and diplomatic communication.”

Since the end of 2014, Indonesia has destroyed more than 170 foreign vessels from various nations as it has tried to fend off Chinese claims that waters surrounding the Natuna Islands are part of traditional Chinese fishing grounds.

In June, President Joko Widodo held a cabinet meeting on the KRI Imam Bonjol, a warship that patrols the waters, and last month Indonesia’s popular Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said she wanted to “celebrate Independence Day this year in Natuna, where I will witness the sinking of many foreign vessels,” later declaring that only Indonesians “can catch fish in Indonesia.”

Read the full story from Bloomberg