The ILO SEA Fisheries Project aims to reduce human trafficking and labour exploitation in fisheries by strengthening coordination and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of existing national and regional level anti-trafficking efforts in South East Asia. Our project aims include coordinating multi-stakeholder action plans; perform in-depth research in order to fill knowledge gaps; measure progress; and enhance overall communication within the regional fisheries industry.
Type: Legal
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is an international federation of transport workers’ trade unions with more than 20,000,000 million members in all transport sectors, which among the others represents fishers working at sea and on land, as part of the supply chain. The ITF is campaigning to protect and secure decent human and labour rights of the fishers worldwide in the world‰Ûªs Fishing is the world‰Ûªs most dangerous industry, mixed up with human trafficking, piracy, child labour, modern slavery and even murder. Effective regulation is vital. The ITF works with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and other relevant international organisation to address the plight of fishers on a global level. The ITF is actively involved in: – Promotion of ratification and implementation of the ILO Work in Fishing Convention No188,2007 which provide the minimum standards regarding employment of fishers: – Fighting to stop the abuse of fishers and fishworkers: – Combating social dumping: – Prevent and eliminate human trafficking in fishing: – Combating IUU fishing which is major threat to people and fisheries.
Plan International Thailand
Plan International Thailand has been working with communities, civil society and the government to advance children‰Ûªs rights and gender equality since 1981. Much of Thailand is well developed, however, there are a number of marginalized groups such as children of migrant workers and stateless people who our work is focused on. Our key areas of work include: ‰Û¢ Gender justice and women’s empowerment: Strengthening the participation and leadership capacity of girls and women so they can make informed decisions about their lives and reach their potential. ‰Û¢ Children on the move: Ensuring migrant children can exercise their rights to education, health care and protection. ‰Û¢ Legal status and citizenship: Helping stateless people, particularly girls, to exercise their rights and access services so they can achieve a better quality of life.
Seafish Industry Authority (Seafish)
The Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) is a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) set up to improve efficiency and raise standards across the UK seafood industry. Seafish is supporting the seafood industry to help eliminate unethical practices from UK seafood supply chains. This is all about harnessing the commitment of the seafood industry to respect human rights; about assessing and understanding modern slavery risks in the supply chain; acting to deal with identified risks; looking for remedies and solutions; monitoring progress and communicating best practice. Seafish has introduced a number of integrated work areas. These include:
– Establishing the Seafood Ethics Common Language Group (SECLG) to bring industry and other stakeholders together to collaboratively understand how ethical issues can be addressed across the supply chain.
– Producing 15 profiles identifying social risks in regions supplying the UK market. These profiles were aimed at informing purchasing decisions in seafood businesses.
– Raised industry awareness of ethical issues and supporting seafood businesses to comply with UK Modern Slavery legislation.
– Developed Tools for Ethical Seafood Sourcing (TESS) to signpost stakeholders to resources to help manage and reduce risks associated with labour issues and worker welfare in seafood supply chains.
– Developed and implemented the voluntary Seafish Responsible Fishing Scheme (RFS) certifying high standards of crew welfare and responsible catching practices on fishing vessels.
– Worked with the supply chain to develop the voluntary Responsible Fishing Ports Scheme which includes worker welfare.
– Produced and disseminated briefings to improve knowledge of the issues and inform key stakeholders about the latest initiative.
Labor Safe Screen (Sustainability Incubator)
The Labor Safe Screen is designed to help seafood companies identify and reduce the risk of slavery in their supply chains. It is a 5-part framework for seafood buyers, sellers and traders to use to reduce risks in work in the seafood sector. It includes supply chain mapping, risk identification based on findings by competent authorities, surveys to collect proof of protective conditions in the workplace, and support for implementing the minimum requirements in international law (code of conduct, universal contract, grievance mechanism, and disclosure of efforts). It includes a tiered approach for screening a large number of products. Combining data from suppliers and workers is a key feature. Users of the Labor Safe Screen manage risks with quantitative scoring and produce positive coverage for their goods and the people making them.
U.S. Department of Labor – Bureau of International Labor Affairs
ILAB’s mission is to promote a fair global playing field for workers in the United States and around the world by enforcing trade commitments, strengthening labor standards, and combating international child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking. The bureau is comprised of three offices: the Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking, the Office of Trade and Labor Affaris, and the Office of International Relations and Economic Research. For more information about the work of each office, see https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/about-us/mission.
Tools for Ethical Seafood Sourcing (TESS)
Tools for Ethical Seafood Sourcing (TESS) is a web tool that points you to a whole host of useful (and free) resources which can help businesses address social responsibility challenges in their seafood supply chains. TESS launched in March 2017 as a one-stop-resource-shop. It starts with an overview of the social issues impacting on the seafood supply chain. Seafish recognised that with so many different sources of information available on ethical issues, which range from identifying issues through to international standards and ‰Û÷on the ground‰Ûª initiatives working on the issues, it can be challenging for seafood businesses to understand this complex landscape and then decide what they need to do to identify issues and make improvements. This is where TESS can help. TESS charts a straight-forward business improvement cycle. All the featured resources (presented as interactive records) are linked to one of six steps in this cycle which has been designed to help systematically tackle issues in seafood supply chains. All the information is publicly available on external websites, so you are taken to the source of the information. The benefit of TESS is that it brings all these resources together in one place. As well as following the six step approach there is a fully searchable database so that you can find all this information on initiatives, standards and organisations very simply.
Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation (LPN)
The Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation (LPN) is a leading non-government organisation working in Thailand to address issues of human trafficking, migrant rights, and migrant child safeguarding. The organisation has its base in the coastal province of Samut Sakhon, 45 kilometers southwest of Bangkok. LPN has worked with communities in Samut Sakhon and surrounding provinces for over a decade. Priority issues include migrant child issues, child trafficking, forced and bonded child labour and illegal employment of children. To address these issues LPN advocates for the provision of education, fair and equal rights for migrant child and their families, and access to appropriate healthcare and information. Given the acute vulnerability of migrant children in Samut Sakhon, and Thailand as a whole, LPN channels significant amounts of time and resources into promoting migrant child issues and providing care, assistance, and safeguarding services to past, current, and potential victims of exploitation and rights violations.
Solidarity Center
The Solidarity Center is the largest U.S.-based international worker rights organization helping workers attain safe and healthy workplaces, family-supporting wages, dignity on the job and greater equity at work and in their community. Allied with the AFL-CIO and working with 400-plus labor unions, NGOs, human rights defenders and community groups, the Solidarity Center assists workers across the globe as, together, they fight discrimination, exploitation and the systems that entrench poverty. It supports programs‰ÛÓe.g., trainings, education campaigns, legal aid, research and transparency initiative‰ÛÓthat help workers understand and exercise their rights, improve their working and living conditions, and build independent unions, including in the fishing and seafood sectors. The Solidarity Center has issued several publications on the fish and seafood sector, including: The Plight of Shrimp-Processing Workers of Southwestern Bangladesh (2012), Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Human Trafficking and Exploitation of Migrant Fishing Boat Workers in Thailand (2009), and The True Cost of Shrimp (2008).
Liberty Shared
Liberty Shared aims to prevent human trafficking through: strategic research: capture and application of information and data: legal advocacy: technological interventions: and strategic collaborations with NGOs, corporations, and financial institutions. Liberty Shared is using its systemic approach to combat slavery and environmental crimes in the fishing industry. This is done by: using research of industry structure and dynamics and the support of the financial sector: sharing key counter-trafficking data and best practices with strategic partners and industry, and channeling intelligence on slavery activities with the corporate community: championing legal and regulatory developments that obligate industry responses to receipt of new information, and improving the understanding of victim identification and protection: creating slavery education and awareness programs to enact change in all sectors of society: collaboration with database providers in the financial sector to share information relevant to anti-money laundering risk and compliance.
FishWise
FishWise promotes the health and recovery of ocean ecosystems by providing innovative market-based tools to the seafood industry, supporting sustainability through environmentally and socially responsible business practices. For more than fifteen years, FishWise has worked closely with the seafood industry to foster leadership in sustainability. We believe that the seafood industry not only has serious impacts on the health of oceans and the welfare of its workers, but also the potential to make an enormous contribution to the health of our planet and its inhabitants. FishWise works by advancing private sector leadership, building multi-stakeholder collaboration, and producing research and knowledge. ADVANCING PRIVATE SECTOR LEADERSHIP: FishWise partners with the seafood industry to achieve some of the most ambitious responsible seafood commitments. Currently this includes partnerships with large national and regional retailers, along with independent grocery stores and mid-supply chain and producer companies. As a growing but still nimble organization, FishWise is selective in the projects it takes on, in order to maximize its capacity and ability to deliver results. BUILDING COLLABORATION AND KNOWLEDGE: FishWise sparks learning and innovation by convening government, industry, and nonprofit organizations to create new strategies for improving traceability and combating human rights abuses in seafood supply chains. We are a go-to resource for best practices, tools, and approaches recommended by diverse experts in the field. With marine and social scientists and data analysts on staff, and through strategic academic affiliations, FishWise translates leading-edge scientific information into pragmatic recommendations for a range of seafood stakeholders.
SAI Global
SAI Global can help develop a focused seafood safety, social, and sustainability program consistent with your customer, regulatory and CSR goals. We provide a range of standard certification, training, supply chain mapping, FIP measurement and social accountability audit and score card solutions tailored to business needs and supply chain expectations.