Cardinal Peter Turkson, is calling for significant improvements in working conditions for those work in the fishing industry. Turkson, who heads the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, says working in the fishing industry is one of the most perilous jobs in the world. And, each year 32,000 people lose their lives working Read more
A report prepared for a Greenpeace New Zealand on the fishing industry has found what amounts to being a modern form of slavery. Workers are promised good wages but many are at sea for months or years working long hours, earning 15 New Zealand cents an hour. Continue reading
New Zealanders and their pets have consumed more than 600 tonnes of seafood sourced from a Thai conglomerate condemned for its use of slave labour. Some indentured workers have even been locked in cages. Figures released by the New Zealand Customs Service under the Official Information Act show seafood giant Thai Union has been a consistent Read more
Three years ago, worried that his earnings as a builder were barely enough to feed his family, Seuy San began to contemplate his prospects over the border in Thailand. Like the hundreds of thousands of his fellow Cambodians who migrate in search of work each year, he had a simple but powerful motivation: “I heard Read more
LINABUAN SUR, the Philippines — When Eril Andrade left this small village, he was healthy and hoping to earn enough on a fishing boat on the high seas to replace his mother’s leaky roof. Seven months later, his body was sent home in a wooden coffin: jet black from having been kept in a fish Read more
Rohingya migrants trafficked through deadly jungle camps have been sold to Thai fishing vessels as slaves to produce seafood sold across the world, the Guardian has established. So profitable is the trade in slaves that some local fishermen in Thailand have been converting their boats to carry Rohingya migrants instead of fish. A Guardian investigation Read more
Sea Sunday is the annual day of prayer for those who work at sea and in ports around the world, and their families. Away from family and friends for many months at a time, working long hours and navigating some of the world’s most dangerous stretches of ocean, seafaring can be a tough, lonely and Read more
The action of 32 Indonesian fishermen working on Korean registered fishing vessels has been credited with forcing the New Zealand government to radically change legislation controlling the way foreign registered fishing vessels operate in New Zealand waters and the way in which and crews for these vessels are recruited. The Jakarta Post carried the story of the 32 Indonesian fishermen who deserted the Read more
During the papal audience at the 23rd World Congress of the Apostleship Of the Sea, Benedictus XVI addressed encouraging words to those working in the vast fishing sector and their families: “…, they more than others must face the difficulties of the present time and live the uncertainty of the future, marked by the negative Read more