Death on the high seas: Taiwanese rights groups demand end to modern slavery on fishing boats

Death on the high seas: Taiwanese rights groups demand end to modern slavery on fishing boats
Nicola Smith, Lya Cai and Dewi Loveard 14 January 2021 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/death-high...

The death of a young Indonesian crew member has become a symbol for the endemic abuse of foreign fishermen

When Arif, a 19-year-old Indonesian fisherman, died quietly in his bunk on a Taiwanese fishing boat in June 2019 – blood staining his mouth – a Fijian coroner ruled that he had suffered a pulmonary oedema.

But his fellow crewmen tell a different story to the official narrative and allege his sudden passing was likely linked to the brutal beatings to the head and neck that were regularly meted out to the rookie crew member from his superiors.

“Every single day [they] bullied him, they punched and hit him on his head. it was a terrible sight and very stressful for all the crew,” Jack, a Filipino crew member, claimed in an interview with the Telegraph in a safe house in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital.

Human rights groups view his tragic death as emblematic of the ongoing endemic abuse of Southeast Asian workers who keep Taiwan’s $2 billion fishing industry and vast fleet – the world’s second-largest after China – afloat.

Rights campaigners have long urged the government to step up its efforts to prevent the forced and bonded labour they claim is rife among some 30,000 foreign workers on the 1,100 vessels that supply tuna and other seafood to supply chains across Asia, North America and Europe.

Among alleged abuses, they cite physical violence, withholding of wages, overwork, and debt burdens as workers owe fees to brokers for securing their jobs. They accuse the authorities of sheltering behind a complex web of maritime jurisdictions to avoid the difficult task of bringing the perpetrators to book.

The alarm has not only been sounded by activists. A crackdown last year by the United States’ authorities on Taiwan’s distant water fleet supported their concerns about the extent of the problems.

In September, the US Department of Labour added fishery products from China and Taiwan to its list of goods that it has reason to believe are associated with forced labour - an unprecedented inclusion.

On December 31, the US Customs and Border Protection agency halted seafood imports from a Taiwanese vessel over suspicion of forced labour, the fourth such ban of 2020.

Jack describes a miserable existence on board the foreign-registered Taiwanese vessel as it battled huge swells while trawling the Pacific for tuna and blue marlin.

He claims the crew, from Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, were forced to work more than 20 hours a day, and were fed small, watery meals.

Most faced physical violence, he alleges, but the young, inexperienced Indonesian was a favourite punching bag, particularly when catches were poor.

He claims one senior crew member was “a furious person. He hurt people, he always cursed his people, bad mouthing us and slapping our heads for no reason at all. There were instances when he got mad and threw our laundry and toiletries in the ocean.”

The crew were assaulted with fishing hooks, he alleges, adding that on one occasion the Indonesian teenager was slapped hard in the face with a thick sandal.

Arif had seemed lonely the night he died and was found lifeless when colleagues tried to wake him in the morning. They immediately went on strike, forcing the boat to dock in Fiji, but the journey to port took days and his body was stored in a freezer.

“When we were about to dock, they asked all the crew to sign a waiver that said the cause of death of the Indonesian crew member was a stroke,” claims Jack.

Arif’s family, who live in a remote village, were unable to be contacted. However, the details of Jack’s story were corroborated by an Indonesian colleague, Stanley, who told the Telegraph that although the victim was often punished, he was generally cheerful and healthy.

He claims Arif had been struck behind his ear a few hours before his death, causing him to cry out in pain. It was only the intervention of the shocked crew that prevented his body from being disposed of at sea.

An autopsy in Fiji ruled that Arif died of “acute pulmonary oedema with bilateral pulmonary oedema” on 17 June 2019 on “High Sea – Tahiti Waters.”

The Fiji police did not respond to Telegraph requests about whether there had been a further investigation into his death.

Pearl Chen, ocean campaigner from Greenpeace East Asia, said uncertainty about the exact timing and location of Arif's death meant it was difficult to establish accountability.

The lack of legal clarity in serious cases can be compounded by the frequent use of flags of convenience, when a ship is registered in another country to avoid financial charges or restrictions in its home country.

However, in March, Taiwan’s fisheries agency, which has limited oversight because of the ship’s foreign registration, asked prosecutors in the southern port of Kaohsiung to investigate possible violations of the Human Trafficking Prevention Act. The probe is ongoing.

The Telegraph attempted to reach the boat’s owners by phone and by email but received no response.

In December 2019, a representative of the vessel denied to Greenpeace that crews were treated inhumanely, emphasising that working was prohibited between midnight and 5 AM, and claiming that the fishermen were paid through labour service companies in Taiwan.

The representative mentioned an incident where a crewman allegedly died in his sleep.

However, the US Customs and Border Protection agency last August issued an order blocking shipments from the vessel at all American ports, following a Greenpeace report in July on the alleged abuse.

It said the ban was based on information “that reasonably indicates the use of forced labour, including physical violence, debt bondage, withholding of wages, and abusive living and working conditions”.

The Greenpeace report – Seabound: the journey to modern slavery on the high seas – is one of several recent investigations by rights groups that has highlighted allegations of appalling working conditions in one of the world’s most dangerous industries.

The challenges are intensified by isolation at sea for months or even years, where it is easier for vessels to operate out of reach of the law, and by dwindling fish stocks that force the fleet further from land.

The biggest complication, however, lies in the fact that the industry involves so many state actors, meaning responsibility and accountability is often unclear.

Greenpeace has demanded Taiwan’s government ensure foreign crew on Taiwanese boats have the same rights and labour standards as their Taiwanese counterparts, including a grievance mechanism, and that it fully implement International Labour Organisation conventions on rights.

It has also asked industry to do more to keep abuses out of its supply chain, including publicly disclosing its full vessel supplier list and embracing international standards like setting a maximum time at sea.

“We keep telling the Taiwanese government it’s very important to establish high seas surveillance.We are not trying to say that all fishing vessels are bad,” said Pearl Chen.

“We can do that with electronic observers, by asking the fishing vessels to return to port every three months and so all fishing vessels will be subject to labour inspections,” she added.

“There are so many things that we could be doing to prevent the situation now. It’s such a shame to our national reputation. We are the country that is proud of our human rights record but look at what we are doing to migrant fishers.”

In a statement, Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency, which comes under the government’s Council of Agriculture, defended its record and it said it was moving towards implementation of the ILO’s Work in Fishing Convention.

Between 2017 and last September, it conducted inspections on 49 per cent of Taiwan’s distant water fishing vessels. The small number of owners who had violated laws received “administrative punishments, or had their cases transferred to the prosecutors’ office for investigation in relation to human trafficking.”

The agency added it was working to enforce its clear policy against recruitment fees, the withholding of wages, and excess working hours, which should guarantee 10 hours rest a day and four days holiday every month.

There would be zero tolerance of physical or verbal abuse and mechanisms were in place to report violations. Harbour inspections to monitor conditions for foreign crews had also been introduced in 2018.

On the US crackdown, the agency said it “was willing to listen to suggestions from all walks of life with humility and discuss ways to improve”.

But while efforts were being made to close the regulatory gap between domestic and foreign workers, it insisted that “most fishing boat owners” were “willing to treat foreign crews kindly”.

NGOs had generally presented a one-sided, subjective picture that unfairly tainted the industry and did not always take into account the views of the vessel owners, it claimed.

Pressure for action continues to mount.

“In recent years, the Taiwanese government has instituted legal and regulatory changes. However, NGOs find these changes to be insufficient and they continue reporting serious abuses,” said a report by the Global Labour Justice-International Labour Rights Forum in December.

“To end forced labour in distant water fisheries, the government must abolish the discriminatory employment scheme and ensure all migrant fishers are afforded the same labour rights and protections as Taiwanese fishers,” said Kimberly Rogovin, the group's senior seafood campaign coordinator.

“I do hope the fishing industry in Taiwan can learn to adjust to international and local regulation against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and the violation of human rights,” added Lennon Ying-Dah Wong, a workers’ rights activist.

“What we want is merely to stop this kind of scandal and abuse, not to destroy the industry…If the industry doesn't change, they might face more international sanctions.”

Hariyanto, the head of the Indonesia Migrant Workers Union, said he had heard of 21 cases, including five from Taiwan, of modern slavery on fishing boats from 2019-2020. The case where Arif had died was “one of the worst cases we found”, he claimed.

But perhaps nobody wants to see reform more than fishermen like Jack and Stanley.

Stanley was left in debt to the broker who found him the job, and still has a scar on his leg where he was struck with a fishing spear.

Jack remains in hiding in Taiwan, where he has found construction work, but is haunted by his experience at sea.

“I just want to be heard..to tell the whole truth about what happened in our fishing boat,” he said. “I want to get justice for what happened to all of us.”

The names of the fishermen have been changed to protect their identies

Additional reporting: Dan Olanday in Manila