Rampant fishing industry abuses dull Taiwan s rights record
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13/05/2021 - 05:03 Taiwan operates the second largest longline fishing fleet in the world, but those who work on its vessels paint a grim picture of punishing work hours, docked pay, months without family contact, regular beatings, and even death at sea Sam Yeh AFP 5 min
Taipei (AFP)
Taiwan s lucrative fishing industry has come under fire for subjecting its migrant workforce to forced labour and other abuses, contrasting with the government s promotion of the democratic island as a regional human rights beacon.
Taiwan operates the second largest longline fishing fleet in the world with boats spending months and sometimes years crossing remote oceans to supply the seafood that ends up on our supermarket shelves.
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Taiwan Fishery Agency responds to US DoL blacklisting
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Taiwan’s fishing authorities have responded to being placed on a U.S. government blacklist by listing a series of measures it introduced in the past year to combat forced labor.
In October 2020, the U.S. Labor Department placed Taiwan on its 2020 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor. In response, Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency has ordered the country’s Department of Transport to ensure that all vessels than 24 meters and longer in length must comply with the International Labour Organization’s Convention 188, also known as the 2007 Work in Fishing Convention. Additionally, Taiwan has added forced labor to its requirements for reporting of cases of human trafficking among foreign crew aboard Taiwanese vessels, it said in a statement to SeafoodSource.
The US has previously lambasted Beijing over its “provocative militarisation” of the contested region.
Things went up a notch on Tuesday when Taiwan began the first of six tests on cruise missiles capable of striking targets the Chinese coast and further inland.
They began just a day after China revealed it had conducted an amphibious landing exercise as part of its month-long drills in the South China Sea.
All this comes as the UK’s £3billion flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth is expected to pass through the hotly disputed South China Sea.
Taiwan s military on exercise (Image: Getty)
HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to pass through the area shortly (Image: Getty)