{"id":5539,"date":"2013-09-03T13:18:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T12:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldfishing.nfdtesting.uk\/icefish-conference\/2013\/09\/03\/ilo-reports-on-thai-fishing-abuse\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T23:54:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T22:54:38","slug":"ilo-reports-on-thai-fishing-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/news\/industry-news\/ilo-reports-on-thai-fishing-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"ILO reports on Thai fishing abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to the report, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ilo.org\/wcmsp5\/groups\/public\/---asia\/---ro-bangkok\/documents\/publication\/wcms_220596.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Employment practices and working conditions in Thailand\u2019s fishing sector<\/em><\/a><\/em>, the majority of the 596 fishermen interviewed, most of which were irregular migrants from Myanmar and Cambodia, entered the sector voluntarily. But, 5.4% stated that they were deceived or coerced into working in fishing.<\/p>\n<p>This was especially evident among long-haul fishers, with 16% stating they did not willingly decide to work on a fishing vessel.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Supang Chantavanich, director of the Asian Research Center on Migration, Chulalongkorn University, added: \u201cThis improved understanding will help to formulate evidence-based policy responses for regulating the recruitment and employment of fishers and preventing and eliminating all unacceptable forms of work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Worse still, 17% said they were working against their will and unable to leave because of financial threats (12%) and the threat of violence or denunciation to the authorities (4.9%).<\/p>\n<p>The report also highlighted the fact that 94% of those surveyed did not have a written contract outlining working hours and terms of payment and found 33 children under the age of 18 working on fishing vessels.<\/p>\n<p>Thailand is a major supplier in the global trade in fish products, with fish exports exceeding US$7bn per annum in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cImproving working conditions is also vital to addressing the severe labour shortages in the fishing sector, and to ensure the sustainability of the industry,\u201d added Professor Chantavanich.<\/p>\n<p>The ILO will now work towards strengthening protection for fishers, implementing measures to improve labour inspection and occupational safety and health, and the deployment of a code of conduct and good labour practices training for vessel owners and captains.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report co-authored by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on working conditions in the Thai fishing sector \u2013 the largest survey to date \u2013 has highlighted \u201csevere labour shortages\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-5539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5541,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5539\/revisions\/5541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5539"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=5539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}