{"id":3702,"date":"2020-03-19T03:05:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T20:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/?p=3702"},"modified":"2024-05-28T14:47:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T07:47:07","slug":"taiwans-major-global-tuna-supplier-shows-blind-spots-to-illegal-fishing-practices-and-modern-slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/press\/3702\/taiwans-major-global-tuna-supplier-shows-blind-spots-to-illegal-fishing-practices-and-modern-slavery\/","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan\u2019s major global tuna supplier shows \u201cblind spots\u201d to illegal fishing practices and modern slavery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Taipei, Taiwan \u2013 Labour and human rights abuses continue to exist
in Taiwan\u2019s distant water fishing fleets, with one major global seafood trader showing its \u201cblind spots\u201d towards practices such as shark finning, forced labour, and illegal transhipment.[1] According to the new Greenpeace East Asia investigation, migrant fishers, who worked onboard vessels that were either flagged or linked to Taiwan, reported conditions that were indicative of forced labour and environmental destruction. At least two vessels are linked to Fong Chun Formosa (FCF), which recently acquired US seafood company Bumble Bee.

\u201cTaiwan has been under international scrutiny for their fisheries practices and weak regulation after a series of expos\u00e9s by Greenpeace East Asia and other
organisations,\u201d[2] said Pearl Chen, campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia. \u201cEven
though, under international pressure, the Taiwanese government amended relevant regulations, progress has not been enough. We found fresh evidence that both government and corporations are failing to protect and respect the human rights of migrant fishers in Taiwan\u2019s distant water fishing fleet. In fact, according to reports from fishers, their conditions not only meet international definitions of forced labour, but could very well violate relevant Taiwanese regulations.\u201d[3]

In \u201cChoppy Waters – Forced Labour and Illegal Fishing in Taiwan’s Distant Water
Fisheries\u201d, Greenpeace East Asia visited one of the ports most frequented by
Taiwanese vessels and interviewed migrant fishers, all hired from Indonesia, who
worked on fishing vessels flagged or otherwise linked to Taiwan; as well as analysed the fishers\u2019 contracts and salary slips. Furthermore, the automatic identification system (AIS) of vessels, where available, were studied to identify ports at which the vessels docked, and potential transhipment at sea behaviours.

In the interviews, the situations described met six of the eleven International Labour Organization (ILO) indicators of forced labour including excessive overtime, withholding of wages, and retention of identity documents. One fisher, who worked on board Taiwanese \u201clongliner A\u201d reported:

\u201cWe only got to sleep for five hours if and when we caught some fish. If we didn\u2019t
catch anything, we\u2019d just have to keep working, even for 34 hours straight. If it were possible, I\u2019d like to change how much time we have to work and rest, to meet the needs of human bodies. There\u2019s got to be a way to make it more balanced, just like how people who work on land do it.\u201d[4]

Fishers also provided accounts of shark finning and illegal transfer of crew and shark fins between vessels. According to one fisher:

\u201cWe only kept the fins of the sharks and discarded the rest of their meat. Last month, I placed the fins out under the sun to dry, but a few days later, we spotted an American patrol boat. The captain got really scared and told me to hide all the fins so that the Americans wouldn\u2019t find them.\u201d[5]

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices were also described by
the migrant fishers on at least two vessels confirmed to be supplying to FCF. This
suggests fish tainted with IUU fishing and forced labour may be getting into the
consumer market.

\u201cConsumers in the main fish markets have every reason for concern that the seafood they buy may have been caught illegally, mixed with illegal catches or fished by workers subject to poor working conditions and even forced labour,\u201d said Pearl Chen. \u201cThe cases of human rights abuse and environmental destruction we found are simply shocking, and major seafood corporations, like FCF, need to lead and uphold global fishery reform.\u201d

FCF has been ranked as one of the world\u2019s top three tuna traders with strong market links in Japan, the Americas, and Europe. In January this year, FCF won court approval to acquire bankrupt American seafood company Bumble Bee Foods. Court documents from 2019 have shown that FCF has been supplying Bumble Bee with over 95% of the albacore and over 70% of light meat tuna they sell.[6]

Greenpeace East Asia is calling, among other things, for FCF to take more proactive
and progressive actions, including enhancing the traceability of the seafood supply
chain; source only from vessels that do not take part in transhipments at sea; and
strictly uphold with international standards on human and labour rights and best
practices.[7]

ENDS<\/p>\n\n

Photo and video can be accessed here
\u201cChoppy Waters – Forced Labour and Illegal Fishing in Taiwan’s Distant Water
Fisheries\u201d report available here <\/strong><\/a>

Notes:
[1] Transhipment involves transferring catches from fishing boats to refrigerated
cargo ships. It also facilitates overfishing and has been linked to serious abuses of
human and workers\u2019 rights at sea. For more on transhipment please see the
Greenpeace International report, Fishy Business.
[2] Greenpeace East Asia, 2016, Made in Taiwan; Greenpeace East Asia, 2018,
Misery at Sea; Environmental Justice Foundation, 2019, BLOOD AND WATER:
Human rights abuse in the global seafood industry.
[3] See section \u201c4.1.3 Possible violations of international standards and Taiwanese
labour regulations\u201d in Choppy Waters report.
[4] See section \u201c4.1.2 Reports of abusive working and living conditions\u201d
[5] See section \u201c4.2.1 Migrant fishers\u2019 testimony: Shark finning and transhipments at sea\u201d
[6] Declaration of Kent McNeil in Support of Chapter 11 Petitions and First-Day
Motions (2019)
[7] See section \u201c6. Responsibilities for Seafood Companies\u201d

Contact:
Moffy Chen – Communications Officer, Greenpeace East Asia, (+886) 987 060 898,
moffy.chen@greenpeace.org,

Shuk-Wah Chung \u2013 Communications Lead, global fisheries campaign with
Greenpeace Southeast Asia, (+61) 405 698 690, shchung@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours),
pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org

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Labour and human rights abuses continue to exist
\n in Taiwan\u2019s distant water fishing fleets, with one major global seafood trader showing its \u201cblind spots\u201d towards practices such as shark finning, forced labour, and illegal transhipment.[1] According to the new Greenpeace East Asia investigation, migrant fishers, who worked onboard vessels that were either flagged or linked to Taiwan, reported conditions that were indicative of forced labour and environmental destruction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":3707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"[caption id=\"attachment_3707\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1200\"]\"Taiwanese The crew of the Hung Yu 122, a Taiwanese longliner, haul in their line in the mid-Atlantic.
The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise and crew are investigating distant water fishing fleet practices in the Mid-Atlantic during September and October 2019.[\/caption]","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[87,132],"p4-page-type":[14],"class_list":["post-3702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-tuna","tag-fishers-right","p4-page-type-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3702"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44928,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702\/revisions\/44928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3702"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=3702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}