Global fisheries face interconnected ecological and social crises. Declining stocks, industrial overcapacity, and growing pressure to maintain catches strain marine resources. At the same time, fishers often face exploitative labour conditions, including wage theft, excessive recruitment debt, long hours and hazardous work, restriction of movement, verbal and physical abuse, and in severe cases, forced labour and human trafficking. These problems are often considered separately. Fisheries authorities focus on vessels, licenses, catch, transshipment, and illegal fishing; whereas labour authorities focus on contracts, wages, recruitment, and workplace safety. Yet, these systems are deeply intertwined. Fisheries sustainability depends not only on the condition of fish stocks, but also on the conditions under which people work.
This policy brief draws on our article Seas of Unfreedom: A scoping review of labour exploitation as a structural feature of global fisheries, where authors examined peer-reviewed, English-language, primary-data-based studies of labour abuse, exploitation, and human rights violations in marine fisheries.