The Vatican has warned that migrant workers within the commercial fishing sector are in danger of being exploited as a result of globalisation and labour shortages.
It is renewing its appeal to governments to urgently ratify the Work in Fishing Convention 2007 (No. 188) to ensure the welfare of fishing crew are better protected.
Enacting the 2007 Convention would ensure fishing crew had ongoing medical care, sufficient hours of rest, the protection of a contract of employment, and the same social benefits enjoyed by workers ashore.
“We are talking about the exploitation of migrant workers who, because of poverty and misery, easily fall prey to recruitment agencies that bind them to forms of forced labour, becoming at times victims of trafficking onboard fishing vessels,” said the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.
The Pontifical Council coordinates the activities of Apostleship of the Sea (AoS) worldwide. It is putting together plans to provide long term support to Filipino fishing communities hit by Typhoon Haiyan.
The Council said fishers risked signing illegal or incomplete employment contracts, coupled with poor salaries and safety conditions onboard. Coastal pollution and destruction along coasts were also forcing them to go further out to sea using substandard boats.
It said family relationships were put to the test by prolonged stays at sea. Often fishers became ‘voiceless’ in society, marginalised and isolated, and incapable of enforcing their rights.
