Labor groups and government officials are pushing to rein in rampant abuses of workers in the fishing industry, where migrant laborers are frequently subjected to slavery and violence from employers. One out of every five fish is caught through illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in conditions where abuses of workers are common, according to a United Nations estimate. Some 128,000 workers are thought to be currently trapped in forced labor on remote fishing vessels around the world, according to the International Labour Organization. Child labor or forced labor has been…
Tag: Fishing industry
You may be eating fish caught and processed by Uyghur forced labor | Kenneth Roth
Last month, Chinese diplomats sent letters – really threats – to discourage attendance at an event on the sidelines of the UN general assembly spotlighting Beijing’s persecution of Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. The childish tactic backfired, heightening media interest, but it highlighted the lengths to which Beijing will go to cover up its repression. A recent exposé on the persecution of Uyghurs should reinforce our determination to address these crimes against humanity. A four-year investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project pulls back the curtain on…
‘It’s not like chicken farming’: why manta rays are chopped up in Sri Lanka
Every morning, starting at 3am, Lakshan hacks up manta rays. A wholesale buyer who plies his trade at Sri Lanka’s largest fish market, in the city of Negombo, just north of Colombo, he jostles with fishers offloading their catches. His business is primarily to find fresh tuna but he also buys 700kg (1,540lb) of manta and devil rays every day. He doesn’t want the ray’s meat, which most Sri Lankans don’t eat. Instead, he’s after the gill plates: cartilage that helps manta and devil rays filter out microorganisms in ocean…
Illegal overfishing by Chinese trawlers leaves Sierra Leone locals ‘starving’
Along Tombo’s crumbling waterfront, dozens of hand-painted wooden boats are arriving in the blistering midday sun with the day’s catch for the scrum of the market in one of Sierra Leone’s largest fishing ports. In a scrap of shade at the bustling dock, Joseph Fofana, a 36-year-old fisherman, is repairing a torn net. Fofana says he earns about 50,000 leone (£3.30) for a brutal, 14-hour day at sea, crammed in with 20 men, all paying the owner for use of his vessel. “This is the only job we can do,”…