Saving Seafood

Oversight of fishing vessels lacking, new analysis shows

February 19, 2020 — Policies regulating fishing in international waters do not sufficiently protect officials who monitor illegal fishing, the prohibited dumping of equipment, or human trafficking or other human rights abuses, finds a new analysis by a team of environmental researchers.

“These fisheries observers risk their lives to watch over industrial fishing activities, and yet they are often not afforded sufficient legal safeguards,” says Jennifer Jacquet, an associate professor in New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies and a co-author of the study. “If we are serious about protecting ocean life, we must first put policies in place to protect fisheries observers.”

The analysis, co-authored with the nonprofit Greenpeace and the Association of Professional Observers, appears in the journal Marine Policy.

There are an estimated 2,500 observers globally, and in recent years many have been subject to human rights and safety violations, including intimidation, assault, and even murder or disappearance under suspicious circumstances. The researchers add that since 2010, at least seven fisheries observers have disappeared while monitoring fisheries under the authority of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs). Notably, very little information is available regarding the circumstances.

Read the full story at Science Daily

New film, “Buoyancy,” tackles issue of slavery in Thai seafood industry

August 19, 2019 — An Australian filmmaker is hoping that his debut feature film entitled, “Buoyancy,” will help to raise greater awareness of human trafficking and slavery on Thai fishing vessels.

Rodd Rathjen’s award-winning film highlights the plight of thousands of migrant Cambodian workers trapped in modern slavery in the Thai seafood industry. Shot in Cambodia in the Khmer and Thai languages, the film centers on the plight of an impressionable 14-year old Cambodian boy, who sets out to escape poverty by finding work in a Thai factory, but finds himself sold by a broker and enslaved on a fishing trawler. The result is a harrowing exposition of a reality that remains an issue for the Thai industry, despite ongoing efforts to combat it.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bill to Address Trafficking in Seafood Supply Chain Introduced in U.S.

September 18, 2018 — U.S. Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo (D-Guam) introduced the “Human Trafficking and IUU Fishing Act” (H.R.6834) on Monday.

The bill, with Representatives Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-AS), and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) as original cosponsors, would add the Secretary of Commerce (NOAA Fisheries) to the President’s existing Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, in response to the growing prevalence of human trafficking, forced labor and human rights abuses within the global seafood supply chain.

In June 2018, the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report identified more than 40 countries with substantial human trafficking and forced labor across their seafood industries and supply chains. This is especially prevalent in southeast Asia and the south Pacific, where illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a widespread problem. Since 2016, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has detained 15 shipments of seafood processed illegally in mainland China by North Korean workers under forced labor.

A 2016 U.S. Intelligence Community report identified IUU fishing as a global security challenge, linked to human and narcotics trafficking.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

Corporate Coordination Can Stop Seafood Slavery

April 4, 2017 — In 2015, media investigations revealed horrific occurrences of physical and emotional violence, human trafficking, and murder on fishing vessels and in shrimp processing facilities primarily in Southeast Asia. The stories sent shockwaves through the seafood industry, but despite efforts by several companies to combat these abuses, seafood slavery persists and will continue to erode consumer trust without a more comprehensive response. At a moment when many U.S. policymakers and ordinary citizens are voicing skepticism over U.S. participation in a globalized economy, now is the time for the international seafood industry to take robust and unified steps toward a transparent and traceable seafood supply chain.

The U.S. Department of State has identified seafood-related human trafficking in more than 65 countries over the past half-decade, many of which supply seafood to the United States, including major exporters such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The paths by which seafood from these countries enters the United States is complex and often opaque. There are numerous points along supply chains at which fish caught or processed using forced labor are mixed with responsibly caught fish—some occurring even before the fish first hit dry land. For example, vessels will often offload their catch onto a supply ship in exchange for provisions and fuel, where it commingles with fish from other vessels. This practice, known as transshipment at sea, allows fishing boats to stay offshore for months—or even years—at a time, keeping laborers from escaping from what amount to floating prisons.

The international seafood supply chain is composed of tens of millions of people moving 158 million metric tons of fish and shellfish annually. This complexity alone poses a serious obstacle to eliminating slave-caught seafood from the U.S. market. The solution is not as straightforward as simply refusing to buy fish from boats with slaves on board. And yet, despite the complicated nature of the problem, the industry must address these abuses. The United States is the second-largest seafood importer after the European Union, and U.S. importers and retailers have a crucial role to play in the global fight against trafficking in persons and other labor abuses.

Read the full story at the Center for American Progress

Fish caught by slaves may be tainting your cat food

January 3, 2017 — Crack open a can of seafood-flavored cat food and whiff that fishy broth. Now try to guess where those gloopy bits of meat originate.

It’s a futile task. Oftentimes, no one knows quite how they got there, or who hauled those fish aboard which boat. Not even the multinational corporations who sell it on supermarket shelves.

Sure, pet food conglomerates can tell you which factories ground up the fish. They know who mixes in the additives, like tricalcium phosphate, and then dumps it into a can.

But the men who actually yanked it out of the sea? They’re usually anonymous, obscured by a murky supply chain.

That’s unfortunate. Because much of the pet food sold in the West is supplied by a Southeast Asian seafood industry, centered in Thailand, that is infamous for its use of forced labor.

For years, this industry has been scandalized by reports of human trafficking and even outright slavery. The victims are men from Myanmar and Cambodia, duped by human traffickers.

Here’s how the scam works. Traffickers promise desperate men a job on a factory or farm in Thailand — a relatively prosperous country compared to its poverty-stricken neighbors.

But there is no legit job. The victims are instead forced onto squalid trawlers. Once the boats leave port, they enter a lawless sea, and the men are forced to toil without pay — sometimes for years on end.

Read the full story at PRI

New AP story finds labor issues persist in Thai seafood industry

September 29, 2016 — A new Associated Press story explores progress made in the past year in reforming abusive labor practices in the shrimp processing sector in Thailand.

The article, “Promises unmet as Thailand tries to reform shrimp industry,” published 22 September, investigates the the difficulties faced by the industry in attempting to implement reforms. The article follows up on a March 2015 AP investigation titled “Seafood from Slaves,” which detailed the use of human trafficking, forced labor and violence against workers in the Thai seafood industry.

“The Associated Press…found that while some Thai companies that export shrimp to the U.S. have given formerly entrapped workers better jobs in-house, others still use middlemen who employ laborers in remote, guarded warehouses,” the AP reported in its new article. “That’s despite industry vows to end outside shrimp processing by the end of last year after human trafficking was exposed in the sheds.”

The owners of these sheds still disregard environmental, labor or safety laws, with 75 percent of the 109 sheds inspected so far this year receiving citations for violations and 24 were ordered to close, the AP reported.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Find that fish: Chicken of the Sea launches traceability initiative

September 14, 2016 — Chicken of the Sea’s owner, Thai Union, has been at the center of controversy lately, particularly following reports of ongoing slavery and trafficking in the Thai fishing industry. Investigations from The New York Times, Associated Press and Guardian linked many of these human rights abuses to Thai Union and Chicken of the Sea, according to a Greenpeace report.

Chicken of the Sea’s traceability efforts are a start on its path to increased transparency and sustainability throughout its supply chain. But knowing where a fish was caught or how it was processed doesn’t necessarily solve human rights abuses occurring on the other side of the world.

Increasing numbers of consumers consider a company’s labor practices in their brand purchase decisions. Consumers today demand transparency, ranging from ingredients to fair labor practices. Manufacturers that embrace consumers’ hunger for transparency can achieve better whole chain visibility and traceability.

That effort offers more information about ingredients, suppliers, processing and other company practices that the brand can then share with consumers. Transparency can also help foster brand loyalty among the vast majority of consumers and convince others to pay more for completely transparent products, according to a recent study from Label Insight.

Read the full story from Food Dive

Foreign Fishermen Confined to Boats Catch Hawaiian Seafood

September 8, 2016 — HONOLULU — Hawaii’s high-quality seafood is sold with the promise that it’s caught by local, hard-working fishermen. But the people who haul in the prized catch are almost all undocumented foreign workers, confined to American boats for years at a time without basic rights or protections.

About 700 men from impoverished Southeast Asian and Pacific Island nations make up the bulk of the workforce in this unique U.S. fishing fleet. A federal loophole allows them to take the dangerous jobs without proper work permits, just as long as they don’t set foot on shore.

Americans buying Hawaiian seafood are almost certainly eating fish caught by one of these workers.

A six-month Associated Press investigation found fishing crews living in squalor on some boats, forced to use buckets instead of toilets and suffering running sores from bed bugs. There have been instances of human trafficking, active tuberculosis and low food supplies.

“We want the same standards as the other workers in America, but we are just small people working there,” said fisherman Syamsul Maarif, who didn’t get paid for four months. He was sent back to his Indonesian village after nearly dying at sea when his Hawaiian boat sank earlier this year.

Because they have no visas, the men can’t fly into Hawaii, so they’re brought by boat. And since they’re not technically in the country, they’re at the mercy of their American captains on American-flagged, American-owned vessels, catching choice swordfish and ahi tuna that can fetch more than $1,000 apiece. The entire system contradicts other state and federal laws, yet operates with the blessing of U.S. officials and law enforcement.

“People say these fishermen can’t leave their boats, they’re like captives,” said U.S. Attorney Florence Nakakuni in Hawaii. “But they don’t have visas, so they can’t leave their boat, really.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press

NISHAN DEGNARAIN & MICHAEL POSNER: Time to crack down on seafood industry’s worst abuses

May 24, 2016 — Over the last year, a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning news stories have revealed human trafficking, forced labor, and other abuses in the seafood industry. The complexity of global seafood supply chains and significant gaps in regulation have made it very difficult to track, much less remedy, these abuses.

Recently, the U.S. government has begun to expand its efforts to monitor and better regulate the seafood industry, recognizing the links between environmental sustainability and food safety. But these efforts have paid too little attention to addressing labor abuses. The solution to these labor problems will require increased regulation, improved corporate sourcing practices, and greater transparency, all predicated on a sharing of responsibility between industry, governments and other stakeholders.

According to the World Bank an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide depend on fish for nutrition. Demand for seafood will continue to rise in the future, as population growth, increasing income, and the rising middle class in developing countries like China and India drive demand.

Read the full opinion piece at CNBC

Sens. Blumenthal and Portman ask president to expand seafood traceability rule

May 17, 2016 — U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rob Portman (R-OH), co-chairs of the Senate Caucus to End Human Trafficking, sent a letter to the president today asking that he expand a proposed rule on seafood traceability.

“We welcome the Administration’s proposed rule on seafood traceability as a further step in combatting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud,” the Senators wrote. “However, we remain concerned that the steps outlined will not adequately address these problems and do little to confront human trafficking within the seafood supply chain.”

The letter urged the Administration to ensure the final version of the rule enhances enforcement requirements on the high seas to prevent human trafficking on vessels, expands seafood traceability to all species, and strengthens tracking requirements beyond the first point of entry into U.S. commerce.

“As a world leader, the U.S. must do all within its power to provide adequate safeguards against illegal and exploitative seafood supply chains,” the Senators concluded.

Read the full letter here