EJF investigated fishing trawlers operating off the coast of Sierra Leone and Guinea.  The boats have official European Union numbers, which means they are licensed to sell to the European market.  The biggest landing point for fish from west African waters is Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, which senior EU officials have criticized for its slack inspection procedure.

The official European Union numbers carried by the boats also mean that those vessels should have passed strict hygiene standards.  However, the EJF report alleges that extremely unhealthy and hazardous conditions exist on board many of the vessels they investigated.

The report claims that the “worst cases meet the International Labour Organization definition of forced labor, including physical confinement, compulsion, retention of identity documents, and non-payment of wages.”  The report goes on to detail conditions where crew members have been “punched, beaten with metal rods, deprived of sleep, imprisoned without food or water, and forced to continue working after injury; the worst cases of violence include murder.”

Some workers are forced to work in areas sorting fish with no ventilation and temperatures well over 100 ˚F.  Photographs and video show living quarters where the ceiling is less than a meter high, or where wooden structures are perched precariously on deck in danger of “being washed over the side.”

EJF alleges that workers are drawn from rural areas of countries like Vietnam or the Philippines, as well as locals, with the promise of higher wages than they could earn at home.  It’s only when they get to the boat that they find those promises never materialize – usually after their passports have been taken away.

The report details one case of a vessel fishing illegally in Sierra Leonean waters,  where “[local] crew members had been picked up in Freetown and taken on without contracts and were not given cash payment.  Instead they were paid in boxes of frozen ‘trash’ fish, which is the bycatch rejected by the European market.

EJF did not originally intend to investigate human rights abuses, but rather focus on illegal fishing practices.

Duncan Copeland,  an EJF investigator, said, “We didn’t set out to look at human rights but rather to tackle the illegal fishing that’s decimating fish stocks, but having been on board we have seen conditions that unquestionably meet the UN official definition of forced labour or modern-day slavery.”

For more information, please see:

MSNBC – Report finds slave-like conditions on fishing vessels – 30 September 2010

GUARDIAN UK – Modern-day slavery: horrific conditions on board ships catching fish for Europe – 30 September 2010

AOL NEWS – Slavery Found on Fishing Boats Supplying Europe – 30 September 2010

EJF – EJF Releases New Report – 30 September 2010