The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) has called on Taiwan to step up its fight against human trafficking at sea and provide greater protection to migrant fishermen employed on Taiwanese-owned vessels.
The UK-based nonprofit organization, which works internationally to protect the environment and defend human rights, last week released an investigative video and a report that detailed shortcomings in Taiwan’s management of its distant water fleets.
Taiwan has put a lot of energy into addressing illegal fishing, but it should also look at the issue of migrant labor exploitation in its fishing industry, EJF deputy director Max Schmid said in an interview in Taipei.
He said there is a close link between illegal fishing and human trafficking.
About 90 percent of the world’s fisheries are overexploited or fully exploited, so fishing boats have to work harder to get the same catch, leading some operators to fish illegally or use illegal methods to get cheaper labor, such as bonded labor and human trafficking, Schmid said.
Tens of thousands of migrant fishermen are thought to be employed on Taiwan-owned vessels, and their plight has been reported by international media and consistently highlighted in the annual Trafficking in Persons report by the US Department of State.
“Increasingly, when people are buying seafood around the world, they expect that it is traceable, sustainable and ethical. It would be bad for the reputation of Taiwanese seafood if it is associated with these problems,” he said.
Schmid urged Taiwan to conduct rigorous labor inspections at major overseas ports where Taiwan-owned vessels land and end the practice of using “flags of convenience” (FOC) registries, or make public the list of Taiwan-invested FOC vessels.
An FOC vessel is one that does not fly the flag of the country of ownership, but the flag of the country where it is registered — usually a country that has less restrictive fisheries and labor regulations.
According to the EJF report, Taiwan has one of the world’s largest distant water fleets, with about 1,800 vessels bearing the Taiwanese flag and at least hundreds of Taiwan-owned vessels registered in other countries.
Schmid urged the Fisheries Agency to publish a list of these FOC vessels to help international non-governmental organizations, governments and journalists identify illegal activities at sea more quickly.
He also urged Taiwan to adopt the International Labour Organization’s (ILO’s) Convention 188 and end labor brokerage fees in the fishing industry.
He also called for Taiwan to raise the minimum monthly wage for migrant fishermen employed in distant water fleets from US$450 to the US$614 minimum wage set by the ILO.
Fisheries Agency Deputy Director-General Lin Kuo-ping (林國平) said that the nation last year passed regulations to better protect the rights of foreign crew members.
However, “it is not that easy” to immediately raise the minimum wages of foreign crew members to international standards or Taiwan’s own minimum wage level, he said.
“It takes time and we are working on it,” he said.
There is an evaluation system that allows officials to weed out bad brokers, he said, but added that there is little Taiwan can do to regulate foreign brokers, whom he said should be the responsibility of their respective countries.
When asked if the Fisheries Agency is willing to release a list of Taiwan-invested FOC vessels as suggested by the EJF, Lin said that those are foreign vessels and not Taiwanese vessels and “in principle, we respect the authority of the flag state.”
However, if Taiwanese crew on these vessels are found to violate human trafficking laws, they will be prosecuted under Taiwan’s law, he said.
Asked if his agency would cooperate with Taiwanese labor officials to carry out labor inspections at overseas ports, Lin said this would involve the jurisdiction of other countries and these types of inspections can only be carried out if there is an agreement between the two governments.
“This is something we still need to work at,” he said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS