SOCIETY | SLAVERY | INDUSTRY
The Slavery Behind Your Seafood
Slavery is not yet a term to be resigned to the history books. The fishing industry continues the painful legacy into the 21st century.
It’s easy to believe slavery is only an issue of before. The trade winds are no longer filled with human cargo. The shackles have been removed. Yet it still exists, in some cases as rampant as ever. The fishing industry is rife with the inhumane practice. The question is, how do we stop it?
What nations are continuing the slave trade?
Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan are hotspots for enslavement. Don’t be fooled though, slavery occurs in the western world too. I was ashamed to find that it’s a problem in my home nation, the U.K.
Why is it happening?
David Tickler Ph.D. of the University of Western Australia has done extensive research into fishing-related slavery and collaborated on a publication named “Modern slavery and the race to fish”. His research paints a less than positive picture.
He has linked the declining catch with the growing slave labour demand. As fishing becomes less and less profitable, the captains and vessel owners alike are searching for alternative ways to decrease their overheads. The most easily reduced cost is labour. Thus they have turned to enslavement. His findings include a shocking statistic, 40% of the world’s catch came from fishing fleets which are at high risk of slavery.
Men (I say men, because it is almost always men) are relentlessly worked for years on end. In some instances leading to death, sometimes because of their environment and hardships, but even worse men have been murdered and their bodies tossed out to sea.
They are treated dismally. Confronted with physical and sexual abuse from bosses. Extremely poor working conditions and long hours. Denied food and water. Sometimes, their only source of food is from eating pieces of raw fish whilst working. If they are lucky, they may have rice and cabbage.
You might wonder how this happens. Why don’t they just leave?
The reasons are broad and complex. Generally, these people find employment on the boats through ‘brokers’, I prefer to call them slave traders.
Brokers prey on migrants. Like a Great White going after a Goldfish. It’s an easy catch.
They often lack the language skills and knowledge of local laws to understand their contracts. The brokerages charge exorbitant fees. They commonly owe more to the broker than they will earn for themselves. They deduct this fee from their salary. Sometimes half their wage is withheld for years and can only be received when they have fulfilled the time stipulations of their ‘contracts’. Leaving them with a pittance and little means of escape.
Another tactic applied to enslave these men is to steal their identity documents. Without these they feel they have little option but to stay on the boat. Often they have no visas or right of entry for the countries that they are in. An issue compounding their problems.
The remoteness of their work also plays a part. When at sea in international waters they have little choice but to co-operate with their captures. The consequences of disobedience can be deadly.
It’s important to remember that these people are victims of abuse. They often stay because they are too scared to rock the boat.
What can we do about it?
How do we end this? Society must answer this question together. It has to be a multi-facetted response.
Technology is one response. Researchers (Gavin G, McDonald et al.) have been harnessing the power of AIS (Automatic Identification System). It’s a device fitted on most boats, they developed it to prevent collisions of ships. It sends location information about the vessel to satellites. They are now redeploying this technology to spot ships who are using slaves.
They can pick up enslavement on boats by studying the boat’s behaviour. They found that boats using slaves behaved differently. A key characteristic of a boat containing a slave workforce, is it being at sea for many months at a time. They travel greater distances from ports to fish. They actively fish for more hour each day. In 2020 they identified up to 14,000 high risk vessels and calculated that these could contain as much as 100,000 crew members on board. Find their full research paper here.
There are other methods being used to combat forced labour. Initiatives like solutions for seafood which incentivise the fishing industry to reduce risk and increase the responsibility of the sea food supply.
The elephant in the room
I could go on about these methods, but I won’t. Lets address the elephant in the room.
It’s impossible to identify fish that slaves have caught, from catch, to landing, to processing and finally to consumer it can seriously muddy the waters and it may appear that the fish on your plate are totally legitimate. Policing it seems to be an uphill battle, which the slave captures are winning.
With that being said, why eat fish at all? Unless you can know with 100% certainty, why take the risk or buying slave products?
Until these slave owners stop selling their fish, they will continue to seek more and more slaves. Government officials are known to be compliant with the exploitation. They know how much money is on the line and don’t want to jeopardise it by enforcing human rights concerns over foreigners.
Governments won’t act, they’ve had more than enough data and time to come up with a response that could ensure that this is dealt with head on and harsh penalties are brought against those who engage in these activities, but they haven’t.
The consumer has to make a stand. This is the only thing that these unscrupulous business men will listen to, the sound of money walking away from them. Everything else just seems futile. Like fighting a bush fire with a watering can.
Until we can know exactly where and who the fish has come from, banish it from your plate. Fish is no longer a viable food source for any free thinking person with half a conscious.
If you’re interested in the world’s wrongdoing, then check out my other work.
April 2021
Delilah Brass