Labour rights abuses in fisheries appear widespread and serious, in many cases meeting the definition of modern slavery. The US State Department lists 40 countries as source, destination or transit countries for human trafficking in fisheries 38, and vessels exploiting fishing crew have been encountered in the waters of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Russia and South Africa, as well as New Zealand 25, 39, 40, 41. There have also been allegations of human trafficking and debt bondage of African and Asian crew on domestic vessels in British and Irish fisheries 34, 35, 36 and trafficking and confinement among South East Asian fishers employed in US fisheries in Hawaii 37. Some of the cases involving South Korean vessels took place while under charter in New Zealand waters 31, 32, 33. These incidents have not been confined just to the high seas or the waters of weaker jurisdictions. Investigations of the Thai, Taiwanese and South Korean fishing industries identified cases of human trafficking, forced confinement, physical abuse and even murder 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. In recent years, however, high profile media investigations have identified a number of cases of extreme labour abuses in fisheries, some involving hundreds of fishing crew. The isolation of workers at sea makes the extent of labour issues in fisheries difficult to quantify. These factors facilitate the use of exploitative employment practices to reduce labour costs at the expense of worker pay, safety and freedom 25. While flag-state responsibility matters, the growing use of flags of convenience further weakens the capacity to enforce regulations 23, 24. Given jurisdictional complexities, it is also often unclear in which country a crew member can seek redress in cases of abuse 22. Supported by reefers and supply ships, fishing vessels can remain at sea for months during which time the crew may be unable to disembark 21, with living and working conditions on such vessels generally beyond the oversight of regulators 15. Given the nature of working at sea, labour conditions of fishing crews are difficult to monitor. This has polarised labour supply and demand between developed/emerging and developing economies, forcing people in the latter group to engage in any work available, including as fishing crew in an industry highly motivated to cut costs and that often operates out of reach of enforcement agencies 14, 20. Concurrently, the political marginalisation of coastal, small-scale fisheries throughout the developing world 16, exacerbated by population growth, has contributed to a surplus of domestic and migrant labour in developing countries 17, 18, 19. The push to reduce operating expenses to maintain profitability has occurred in the context of rising living standards and employment expectations in industrialised fishing countries, leading to domestic crew shortages and higher wage demands 14, 15. The large contribution of labour to fishing costs suggests that, in addition to government subsidies received for fuel, vessel operators can capture a significant additional subsidy by aggressively reducing expenditure on crew, for example, by non-compliance with labour and safety standards or by withholding pay.

Estimates of fishing labour costs suggest that they comprise 30–50% of total fishing costs 4, 13. Failure to manage fisheries sustainably has serious implications for human welfare, as fish (here meaning finfish and invertebrates) provide billions of people with protein and vital nutrients 10, as well as employment and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people 11.įalling productivity and financial returns in commercial fisheries can pressure vessels to cut operating costs, at the extreme by fishing illegally, circumventing licensing costs and catch limits 12, and by reducing expenditure on crew pay, safety and living conditions. The resultant overly optimistic trend in government data has fostered suboptimal policies, in particular the allocation of resources to harmful capacity-enhancing subsidies rather than enforcement or stock rebuilding 1, 6, 7. The underlying pattern of decline has been masked in the officially reported data by inconsistent data reporting from some areas of the world 1, 6, 7 and by a presentist bias 8 that assumes improved catch reporting equals increased catches 9. The consequent race to fish has been exacerbated by harmful government subsidies that enable fishing effort to persist beyond bio-economic limits 5. Since the mid-1990s, global marine fisheries catches have steadily decreased 1 while fishing effort has continued to increase, leading to intense competition, declining catch-per-unit-of-effort and fisheries profitability, and the over-exploitation of many stocks 1, 2, 3, 4.

Tockler dye