Taiwanese fishing representatives have issued a joint statement to protest the treatment they have received from non-governmental organizations including the Seafood Working Group and Greenpeace.
The Taiwan Deepsea Tuna Longline Boatowners and Exporters Association, Taiwan Squid Fishery Association, Taiwan Tuna Purse Seiners Association, Taiwan Tuna Longline Association, and Distant Fisheries Youth Association said the industry’s continuing efforts on labor are “simply ignored” by the campaign groups.
“Instead, they request that Taiwan be downgraded to Tier 2 ranking in the 2022 U.S. [State Department] Trafficking in Persons Report, which is a huge disappointment for all of us,” they said in a joint statement provided to SeafoodSource.
Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF) and Greenpeace Taiwan, on behalf of the Seafood Working Group (SWG), are demanding Taiwan be named a Tier 2 country in the U.S. State Department’s upcoming Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, set to be published this summer. The U.S. State Department describes as the document as the “U.S. government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking.”
The statement, which was provided by Tony (Han-Yu) Lin, the section chief of the Taiwan Deepsea Tuna Longline Boatowners and Exporters Association, said criticism from NGOs “will only lead to no progress or advancement in improving fisheries and human rights protection.”