'73% of vessels suspected of human rights abuses and illegal fishing identified by EJF are on the list of authorized exporters to the EU'

OPAGAC: 'The Spanish tuna fleet calls on the EU to end its indifference to the violation of human rights on Chinese vessels'

SPAIN
Thursday, April 25, 2024, 01:00 (GMT + 9)

Following the publication of an EJF report revealing that 73% of vessels suspected of human rights abuses are on the list of authorized exporters to the EU

Madrid - The Spanish tuna fleet, grouped in the Organization of Associated Producers of Large Freezer Tuna Vessels (OPAGAC), demands that the European Union put an end to its indifference to the violation of human rights on Chinese fishing vessels.

The fleet represented by OPAGAC reiterates this call following the recent publication of a report by the British NGO Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) that documents the systematic abuses committed aboard the Asian country's fleet in the southwestern Indian Ocean between 2017 and 2023.

OPAGAC warns of the seriousness of the fact revealed by this report that 73% of the vessels suspected of human rights abuses and illegal fishing identified by EJF appear on the list of authorized exporters to the EU. According to EJF, Chinese vessels - the NGO has identified 138 with authorization to fish in this region of the Indian Ocean - were linked to 86 cases of this type of abuse. In the case of the 95 authorized tuna longline vessels, 47% are related to this type of case.

Among the documented irregularities, 100% of the fishermen interviewed by EJF report abusive living and working conditions, while 96% and 55% declare having faced excessive overtime and suffered physical violence, respectively. The testimonies collected also reveal four deaths on Chinese fishing vessels between 2017 and 2023, including an alleged suicide of a crew member who threw himself overboard.

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The Spanish tuna fleet believes that reports of this severity should force the European Executive resulting from the elections on June 9 to adopt a definitive position and take forceful measures that reflect its zero tolerance for the entry into the community market of fishing products from fleets with documented cases of forced labor, human trafficking, and even child exploitation.

In the opinion of OPAGAC, it is the responsibility of the EU to promote human rights and decent work standards in the global fishing sector, which should include requiring the fleets of all the countries with which it maintains trade agreements the level of compliance in socio-labor matters required to the community fleet.

Likewise, it is urgent to strengthen controls on imports from Asian fleets, especially from Chinese capital, to guarantee that community citizens do not consume fish from ships that practice modern slavery and do not respect the minimum socio-labor conditions established in Convention 188 on the work in fisheries of the International Labor Organization. In this regard, the fleet gives as an example the 18,695 tons of tuna loins of Chinese origin that our country imported in 2023 as part of the autonomous tariff quota with zero tariffs.

According to Julio Morón, managing director of OPAGAC, “If the EU allows imports of fish caught by this fleet for the consumption of European citizens, it is becoming an accomplice in this type of crime. The time has come - adds Morón - to act decisively against a fleet supported mainly by government subsidies, whose growth and practices are uncontrolled, as corroborated by the EJF report, and which, in addition, represents a serious threat to fish populations. and for the coastal communities of the areas in which it operates, generally economically vulnerable and highly dependent on its fishing resources.”

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