https://www.illicit-trade.com/2018/11/modern-slavery-and-forced-labour-providing-hidden-subsidies-to-crooked-fishing-fleets-study-finds/

Modern slavery and forced labour providing ‘hidden subsidies’ to crooked fishing fleets, study finds

Published

 2 weeks ago 

on

 7 November 2018

By

 Lynne Finney

A new study conducted by researchers from Canada and Australia has revealed that modern slavery and forced labour have become “hidden subsidies” that allow some corrupt “distant-water” fishing fleets to remain profitable and participate in overfishing.

Academics at the University of British Columbia teamed up with counterparts at the University of Western Australia and NGO the Sea Around Us for the research, which found that countries whose fleets rely heavily on government subsidies, fish far away from home ports, and fail to comprehensively report their actual catch tend to fish beyond sustainable limits and are at higher risk of labour abuses.

The study suggests that crews on boats from China, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Russia are at a particularly high risk of becoming victims of modern slavery due to a lack of regulatory oversight in those countries, as well as the complexities of jurisdiction at sea.

Discussing the contents of the report, Daniel Pauly, Principal Investigator at the Sea Around Us initiative, said: “The lack of control over these boats makes them a fertile ground for labour abuses, as well as other crimes including illegal fishing. It also facilitates transshipment, where catches of multiple fishing vessels are often combined before landing.

“Thus, seafood caught illegally or under conditions of modern slavery is laundered by mixing it with legally caught fish before it enters the supply chain.”

Pauly went on to explain that this is how countries described as “low slavery risk” markets such as the US, the EU and Australia end up consuming seafood that may have been caught by crew members who had been forced into modern slavery.

Concerns are routinely raised about the practices of fishing fleets operating out of countries such as China, Taiwan and Thailand, some of which sell their products to western companies that are keen to make sure their supply chains are not contaminated by modern slavery.

In January, a report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) revealed that Thai fishing fleets that supplied seafood to retailers in Europe, the US and Japan were riddled with modern slavery and forced labour.

The study found that fishermen mostly from Cambodia and Myanmar were being forced to work in filthy and dangerous conditions for little or no pay in Thailand, after being trafficked into the country to be sold into bonded labour.

“Consumers in Europe, the US, and Japan should be confident that their seafood from Thailand didn’t involve trafficked or forced labour,” said Brad Adams, HRW Asia Director.