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Before You Board: The Hidden Risks of Distant Water Fishing

Every year, thousands of Indonesians work as fishers on foreign boats, promised high wages for work abroad. However, the reality of life at sea can be very different from what is promised. Once onboard, fishers are routinely overworked, abused, and exploited.

Are you thinking of taking a job on a distant water fishing vessel? Watch out for these warning signs:

🚩 The recruitment agency doesn't have a valid licence or has a bad reputation. A company's SIUKAK/SIUPPAK permit can be found on the official Ministry of Transportation website, while its SIP3MI permit can be checked on the Ministry of KP2MI website.

🚩 The recruitment agency offers loans

Loans through banks or cash advances from companies are often used to pressure crew into accepting low salaries or prevent them from terminating their employment contracts.

🚩 Lack of transparency about salary

The recruitment agency receives crew's salary in advance before transferring it to their personal account. This creates an opportunity for companies to illegally "take a share" of crew's salary.

🚩 Retention of identity documents

Confiscation of passports, ID cards, family cards, and other personal documents controls migrant workers' movements while working.

🚩 Offered work on Chinese-flagged ships

Several human rights organisations have documented various human rights violations and allegations of forced labor against Indonesian migrant workers on Chinese-flagged ships.

(The footage used is illustrative and does not necessarily show the boats discussed by the fishers.)

Net loss: the urgent need for reform in Cameroon's fisheries

This film lays bare the impacts of illegal fishing on Cameroonian coastal communities, highlighting widespread lawbreaking, human rights abuses, and the urgent need for fisheries transparency.

Unregulated: The South Atlantic Squid Fishing Boom

Hundreds of distant-water vessels are plundering squid populations in the Southwest Atlantic, driving a keystone species towards collapse and exposing workers to horrific abuses, according to a new investigation and film from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF).

Adrift: Senegal’s coastal crisis and the deadly route to Europe

Abdou and his father are separated by 1,500 km of ocean – a distance Abdou travelled in November 2020. He left Joal-Fadiouth, a fishing town in Senegal, and eventually reached Tenerife, a Spanish island off the coast of Morocco, after spending approximately fourteen days at sea in a wooden fishing boat. This route, increasingly used by people in West Africa to reach Europe, is considered one of the most deadly on Earth.

For Abdou, his loved ones, and thousands of others along Senegal’s coastline, the fishing they once depended on is no longer an option. With few alternatives, more and more people are being pushed toward life-threatening journeys, seeking opportunities elsewhere. This escalating, intersecting crisis demands urgent attention and action.