Trapped at sea

Conditions for crew aboard seven vessels arrested by South Africa authorities in 2013 have drawn attention to the difficulties faced by crew on fishing vessels. The 74 men aboard the Bahrain Nusantara, Bahari Nusantara No 83, No 19, No 5 and No 26 the Bintang Sumudra No 11, Sumudra Gilontas No 231 and Mahklta Abadi all under Taiwanese ownership, were described as slavery like conditions.

Described by Cassiem Augustus as ‘floating shanties’ each vessel accommodated up to eleven men crammed into damp, windowless cabins. Working gruelling 20-hour days with little or no pay and inadequate food the threat of physical abuse is always present.

The fishers on board had been gathered from recruitment companies in Indonesia, a migrant labour force working at sea for as little as 11 months and sometimes as long as five years before they ever set foot on home soil.

The lucky work on vessels where the senior crew are fair and compassionate, the unlucky ones risk senior crew that will confiscate their documents and force them to be immobilized at sea with no options of returning home, imprisoned to fish for a company with no hope of payment or compensation for their intense and hazardous work.

Accounts from the crew highlight the range of illegal practices being employed by illegal operators, including reports that crew are transferred from one vessel to another at sea and claims that they were ordered to repaint the name of their vessel at least five times a day, in an attempt to evade fishing authorities.

Lawyer Alan Goldberg comments that ‘these tales of abuse are the ordinary course of business in the longline fishing industry.’