Press Release
12th October 2019
London, UK. Reporting in Fijian media in the July edition of Islands Business Magazine has highlighted the work being undertaken by Human Rights at Sea and NGO partners in the evidential collation of cases of abuses in the Pacific region and particularly in relation to tuna fishing fleets.
Recently, the Forum Fisheries Agency has taken bold steps in enhancing legislative provisions which if enabled, will provide stronger safeguards and regulation for seafarers working in the Pacific fisheries sector. Such decision-making has been supported by numerous sources of evidence, including those from civil society NGOs.
“In what has been called a ‘landmark decision’, Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) member states are to include crew employment conditions in minimum requirements for fishing licenses. For many years there has been concern about workers’ conditions on foreign longline fishing vessels plying our region’s waters. The FFA says these vessels and the fishing companies that own them, “often require crew to stay at sea for up to a year with poor pay and conditions and harsh penalties for dissent.”
The decision to address these concerns also comes on the heels of a Business and Human Rights Resource Centre report that alleges canned tuna brands are “failing to tackle modern slavery in their Pacific supply chains.” That report alleges that “severe human rights abuse is endemic, including forced labour, slavery, human trafficking and child labour, and reports of migrant workers bought and sold as slaves and tossed overboard if they complain or get injured.”
Read the full article reproduced with permission.