The British EJF Foundation has released a global film accusing Taiwan of human rights exploitation of fisheries and serious need for improvement in longline fishing.

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"threats at gunpoint, enslavement, dangerous work and dirty living conditions are only a small part of what fishermen have to endure to work on Taiwanese fishing boats." The British Environmental Justice Foundation (Environmental Justice Foundation, hereinafter referred to as EJF) interviewed more than 30 fishermen, including offshore, ocean-going and Quanyi vessels, to make an investigation documentary to expose the exploitation of human rights in Taiwan's fishing industry and the threat to marine ecology.

At a critical moment when the European Union will re-evaluate whether to remove Taiwan's fishing yellow card, Max Schmid, deputy chief executive of EJF, made a special trip to Taiwan to release a film to the world at 5 p.m. today (13), exposing that there are still problems in Taiwan's fishing industry, such as the human rights of fishermen and the catch of longline fishing. I hope that the Taiwan government will take more positive measures.

EJF: intermediaries lead to the abuse and poor treatment of fishermen, and the problem of expedient boats is even more serious.

The documentary is set in October 2016, when nine tuna longline boats claimed to be Bolivian entered the Thai port of Phuket for maintenance, but after confirming with the Bolivian government, the Thai government confirmed that the nine fishing boats operated by Taiwanese were not registered with Bolivia. so the Thai government detained them in the port. The registration data of these fishing vessels show that their operating addresses are in Kaohsiung, and some fishing vessels have changed their nationalities or names. Although they do not fly the Taiwan flag or any national flag, six of them are captains of Taiwanese.

EJF pointed out that the fishermen, mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines, said they had been subjected to varying degrees of violence, exploitation and threats. The cabins they live in are dirty and small, but most of their wages are still used to pay for food, accommodation, medical examinations, transportation and so on. The working hours on board are long, the environment is dangerous and inhumane, and the hard work is extremely poorly paid, sometimes not even paid at all.

Max Schmid says that although not every captain attacks fishermen, abuse is more common on expedient vessels. In addition, in Taiwan's government-regulated intermediary system, fishermen sign contracts with intermediaries, but intermediary problems emerge one after another, damaging the rights and interests of fishermen. "the intermediary of ocean-going fishermen makes the fishermen have debts before they start to work, and because they have debts, they have to continue to work to pay their debts." The Government should further change the system and the contents of the contract to ensure the rights and interests of deckhands.

Photo courtesy of / Xu Chengyi

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