In that day’s most viewed website story from the British broadsheet The Guardian, human rights abuses on trawlers off West Africa were dramatically documented.
While the study “All at Sea”, produced by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), initially intended to focus on IUU (Illegal, unreported, unregulated) catches and overfishing, the “slavery” which they uncovered also revealed the human tragedy of the ocean’s lawlessness.
The highly productive West African fisheries have often been a haven for unscrupulous fishers. Weak enforcement and low capacity enable those that break the law to go unpunished. The EU’s IUU regulation, which came into force at the start of 2010, sought to improve the traceability of fish and tighten the net around pirate fishers. However, the mislabelling of fish and the transhipment of catches on the high seas still make it possible for the rules to be breached. Moreover, a significant quantity of the catch from Africa’s waters is not destined for the EU market and thus does not require certification.
The new EJF report uncovered a new catalogue of scandals. Forced labour, the confiscation of identity documents, squalid working and living conditions, lack of access to clean water, withholding of pay, confinement aboard ships for month and years and violence were all documented.
Workers have been recruited mostly from rural areas in poverty and unemployment stricken countries such as Senegal, Sierra Leone, China and Vietnam. The trawlers may not dock for years, their catches merely offloaded onto smaller vessels while still at sea, while the workers stay trapped aboard forced to continue labouring.