Traditionally, Human Rights Day has focused on international human rights abuses that take place on land: modern slavery, cruel and inhuman treatment and unfavourable conditions of employment, to name a few.
Increasingly, however, human rights and environmental justice communities have shed light on the interlinkages between these abuses and those connected to the world’s largest frontier, one that covers 70% of our world’s surface the ocean.
The ocean defines our planet. Over half of the oxygen we breathe comes from marine life. It stabilizes our climate, absorbs much of the carbon and heat we produce and provides food, jobs and livelihoods to more than three billion people. It’s also the home of egregious human rights abuses.
As investigative reporter Ian Urbina put it best, the ocean is Too big a frontier to police, the ocean plays host to rampant criminality and exploitation which includes unimaginable human rights abuses and slavery. These abuses are closer to home than we think. With 90% of all the products we consume arriving by way of ships, our consumption habits influence activities at sea.
Stories of slavery at sea today highlight appalling human conditions, with workers separated from their families and forced into abysmal conditions, often unable to or prevented from returning home. Today, 40 million people live in modern slavery conditions, and 39% of seafood comes from countries that are at high risk of slavery. It is estimated that of the 152 million children engaged in child labour, the vast majority are in the agricultural sector, including hazardous fishing and aquaculture labor.
The added prevalence of transshipping, or the exchange of goods via intermediate destinations or at sea, makes it particularly difficult to have transparency over which vessel products come from and what practices were used on board. Illicit and illegal activities on the ocean frequently organized and transnational also tend to include document fraud, drug, human and arms trafficking, other smuggling and money laundering.
In addition to rampant abuse at sea, the impact of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing adversely affects the economic and social well-being of local fishing communities, especially in countries where coastal communities rely heavily on fishing for food and livelihoods. Overfishing and the exploitation of fishing near these communities renders them particularly vulnerable.
As the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy observes, a healthy ocean can improve the lives of some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and would help meet all of the Sustainable Development Goals, not just SDG 14 (the Ocean Goal). It is becoming increasingly clear that in order to achieve a just ocean, we must move beyond looking at just the ocean
There are clear areas where greater multi-stakeholder cooperation and action to address ocean human rights abuses can move us closer to a healthy and more just ocean, and in turn, contribute to greater global development objectives.
2020 World Economic Forum