Securing the rights of migrant fishermen, described as the backbone of Taiwan’s distant-water fishing fleet, is the most pressing issue facing the country’s fisheries industry, the head of the government’s top oversight body said Tuesday.
Control Yuan President Chen Chu, speaking in her capacity as head of the body’s National Human Rights Commission, said the extent to which the rights of migrant fishermen were valued affected the industry as a whole, including fisheries exports to other countries.
According to Fisheries Agency data, Taiwan’s distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet employs nearly 20,000 migrant fishermen, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines, with an additional 10,000 migrant fishermen employed in coastal and offshore fishing.
In recent years, however, multiple groups have pointed out that migrant fishermen are often exploited by the Taiwanese owners of vessels.
Concerns over the lack of protections afforded to migrant fishermen reached a point where the U.S. government classified fish caught by Taiwan-flagged vessels as products of forced labor in 2020.
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