Report: Chinese fishing fleet is responsible for systemic human rights abuses and illegal fishing across the Southwest Indian Ocean.
The Chinese fishing fleet is responsible for systemic illegal fishing and human rights abuses in countries bordering the Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO), undercutting China’s claims of supporting sustainable development and thriving blue economies in the region, according to a new report published today by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). All of the fishers interviewed by EJF who had worked on China’s tuna fleet in the SWIO reportedly experienced or witnessed some form of human rights abuses and/or illegal fishing.
China’s distant-water fleet (DWF) is by far the largest in the world, with a growing reputation of perpetrating egregious human rights abuses and illegal fishing. EJF has conducted extensive analysis of China’s DWF over years, revealing incontrovertible illegality and abuse.
EJF has been tracking the Chinese fleet since 2020, and has conducted multiple investigations into its illegal and unethical activities, including conducting 318 interviews with former crew who worked on at least one Chinese vessel, 96 of which were in the last 6 months. However, the extent of criminal abuses in the SWIO stands in particularly stark distinction to China’s professed interests in the region, it says. This new investigation exposes four deaths which occurred on Chinese vessels between 2017 and 2023, including one suspected suicide of a crew member said to have thrown himself overboard.
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