November 2, 2023 — China is requiring its entire distant-water fleet to implement electronic monitoring on its ships from 2024 onward, according to a new government whitepaper that comes soon after the release of a bombshell Outlaw Ocean report focusing on alleged worker abuses that occurred on some of the nation’s distant-water trawlers.
The report links specific Chinese processing companies to state-run labor programs that have subjected the Uyghur ethnic minority group to what the U.S. government has labeled as illegal forced labor.