A fleet of Chinese fishing vessels used North Korean crews between 2019 and last year in a breach of a UN ban, and many people were apparently subjected to abuses, including being trapped at sea for years, a report said on Monday.
The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a London-based group specializing in environmental and human rights issues, said it had identified the presence of North Koreans on 12 Chinese tuna long-liners operating in the southwest Indian Ocean. The report was mostly based on interviews with 19 Indonesians and Filipinos who worked alongside them.
“The testimony received from Indonesian and Filipino crew members suggests that concerted efforts were made to hide the presence of North Koreans on these vessels, and that those North Koreans on board were forced to work for as many as 10 years at sea — in some instances without ever stepping foot on land,” the report said.
Photo: AP
“This would constitute forced labor of a magnitude that surpasses much of that witnessed in a global fishing industry already replete with abuse,” it added.
The group said the North Koreans were passed from vessel to vessel to prevent them from returning to land. It cited unidentified Asian crew members as saying their North Korean shipmates were not allowed to use mobile phones or leave vessels during port visits.
The group said it was not able to estimate the number of North Koreans aboard the Chinese vessels because of the transfers.
The use of North Korean crew would be a breach of 2017 UN Security Council resolutions that required member states not to issue work permits to North Koreans and repatriate all remaining North Korean workers from their territories by the end of 2019.
The sanctions were adopted after North Korea conducted nuclear and long-range missile tests in a breach of earlier council resolutions.
The group said the use of North Korean crews also appears to have bypassed legal frameworks in the UK and the EU designed to prevent goods produced by North Koreans from entering their supply chains.
The EJF said that it also found ships that were suspected of collecting fish from the Chinese vessels had entered key markets in Asia, including Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Along with Russia, China is suspected of not fully enforcing UN sanctions on North Korea and has vetoed US-led efforts to toughen UN sanctions on North Korea despite its banned weapons tests.
Asked about the EJF report, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) on Monday told a news conference that he was not not familiar with it, but said that China carries out offshore fishing in accordance with laws and regulations.
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