US Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo introduced the ‘Human Trafficking and IUU Fishing Act’ (H.R.6834). The bill would add the Secretary of Commerce (NOAA Fisheries) to the President’s existing Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, in response to the growing prevalence of human trafficking, forced labor, and human rights abuses within the global seafood supply chain.
The United States must combat human rights abuses across the global seafood industry and ensure that American fishermen are never expected to compete against foreign imports produced with slave labor. Increasingly, we are seeing foreign fishing fleets forcing vulnerable people who are trafficked, drugged, and coerced to fish around the clock out of fear for their lives”
…noted Madeleine Z. Bordallo.
In June 2018, the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report identified more than 40 countries with substantial human trafficking and forced labor across their seafood industries and supply chains.
This is especially prevalent in southeast Asia and the south Pacific, where illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a widespread problem driving regional conflict.
Since 2016, US Customs and Border Protection has detained 15 shipments of seafood processed illegally in mainland China by North Korean workers under forced labor. A 2016 US Intelligence Community report identified IUU fishing as a global security challenge, linked to human and narcotics trafficking.
The bill was introduced with representatives Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-AS), and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) as original cosponsors.
The H.R.6834 amends the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-386), which first authorized the President’s interagency Task Force.