Tag: human rights

Thailand is the first country in Asia to accept the Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 (No. 188), that protects the living and working conditions of fishers onboard vessels. The Convention has specific requirements related to work on board fishing vessels, including occupational safety and health, medical care at sea and ashore, rest periods, written work agreements, and social security protection.

Eight Indian seafarers have been abandoned in Walvis Bay, between the timeframe of one and two years, onboard the St. Vincent and Grenadines-flagged vessel, Halani 1. The abandonment resulted to seafarers' suffering from fatigue and serious mental health problems. As a result, the UK-based Charity 'Human Rights at Sea' stated that Captain Amarjit Singh Bajwa first contacted the charity’s Iran-based researcher, Hajar Hejazi, to appeal for urgent help.

British human rights charity 'Justice Upheld' has started a petition for 40 seafarers from India, Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea and Ethiopia, who have been deliberately abandoned at sea on ships owned by an UAE-based shipping company for over 27 months without pay.

Despite a century of abolition efforts, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, passed by Congress in 2016, skippers still have the authority to punish 'troublesome sailors' with nothing to eat but bread and water, but this is to change from the very first day of 2019 with an update of the US Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Human rights at sea gains significant attention of the maritime community. Due to its diversified identity, shipping constitutes a friendly field for human rights abuses, with human trafficking, illegal migration, slavery and abuse in fishing sector and even the unsafe working conditions in many Southeast Asian ship recycling facilities being among the key areas of concern.

The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) issued ten basic principles for states to follow in a bid to achieve transparency in global fisheries, a sector which has been at the centre of numerous human rights violations and for illegal fishing practices which pose a significant threat to the world's ecosystems. 

In a new investigation, the EJF reported several illegal fishing practices and human rights violations related to Taiwanese vessels. As such, the NGO is calling for Taiwan to sign up to the ten principles for fisheries transparency and for immediate action to be taken to prosecute vessels and companies alleged to be involved in illegal fishing and human rights abuses.

Thailand is set become the first country in Asia to ratify the Work in Fishing Convention C188, which sets basic standards of decent work in the fishing industry. On 29 November, Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly approved proposal to proceed with the ratification of ILO Work in Fishing Convention No. 188, 2007 (C188).

Mrs Elizabeth Mavropoulou, Charity Administrator and Programme Manager at Human Rights at Sea, addresses the issue of maritime human rights, referring to the many actions undertaken by the “Human Rights at Sea", a registered UK Charity, which aims to bring the topic to the table.

Speaking at a World Fisheries Day panel discussion he UN's Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, on November 21, Vatican's Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Cardinal Peter KA Turkson, noted that the church should not remain silent to human rights abuses in the fishing sector.