PERU, 10.06.2023, Courtesy Photo
U.S. Coast Guard District 11
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Alder raises the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO) flag while patrolling the Eastern Pacific Ocean during Operation Southern Shield in October 2023. The Coast Guard recently completed the first high-seas boardings and inspections off the coast of Peru under a newly adopted multi-lateral agreement to monitor fishing and transshipment operations within the SPRFMO Convention Area, a region which encompasses nearly a quarter of the Earth’s high seas. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Kenneth Honore)

The Indo-Pacific Defense Forum reports,

“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the leading abuser of forced labor on fishing vessels globally, according to a new study…The United Nations International Labour Organization estimated that 128,000 fishers worldwide were trapped into forced labor aboard vessels, according to the 2022 “Global Estimates of Modern Slavery” report. That figure, however, “likely significantly understates the full extent of the problem. The isolation of the workplace makes it difficult to reach the fishers affected, while the extreme vulnerability that comes with work at sea, as well as the risk of repercussions, can lead to reluctance on the part of fishers to report and discuss abuses,” the report stated.

This practice goes hand in hand with Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.

“The PRC’s plundering of coral, clams and fish is “theft on a grand scale, unrestricted warfare on natural resources,” Kevin Edes, a maritime security analyst for SeaLight, a project of Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, wrote on the SeaLight website in November 2023. Edes noted that Adm. Linda Fagan, commandant of the United States Coast Guard, described the PRC’s IUU fishing as “theft of a nation’s natural resources.”