ILO survey finds forced labor risks persist in Southeast Asian fisheries

Regional study estimates 13 percent of migrant workers face forced labor, with risks highest aboard distant-water fishing vessels

A recent regional survey by the International Labour Organization (ILO) finds that migrant workers in Southeast Asia’s fishing and seafood processing industries continue to face serious gaps in working and living conditions, highlighting persistent weaknesses in labor protections across the region’s blue economy.

The report, produced under the EU-funded ILO Ship to Shore Rights Southeast Asia program and described as the largest of its kind to date, provides new data on recruitment practices, workplace conditions and forced labor in major countries of origin — Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam — and key destinations, including China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan (China) and Thailand.

The findings reveal widespread challenges, including high recruitment costs, weak wage protections, long working hours and serious occupational injuries. Workers also reported barriers to freedom of association, limited access to social protection and ongoing risks of forced labor.

Applying the ILO’s methodology, the study estimates that 13 percent of migrant workers in the fishing and seafood processing sectors were employed in situations of forced labor — meaning they were working against their will and unable to leave their jobs. The risk was far higher among migrant fishers, where 20 percent were estimated to be in forced labor, compared with 0.4 percent among seafood processing workers.

Abuse was found to be more frequent on distant-water tuna vessels, where long work hours and extended periods at sea increase vulnerability to coercive labor practices. These vessels often operate in remote areas of the high seas, where oversight and enforcement are limited.

Although working conditions were comparatively better in seafood processing than in fishing, the report concludes that stronger labor protections are needed throughout the fish and seafood supply chain. It also notes the heavy reliance on women migrant workers in seafood processing, where many are concentrated in low-paid, precarious and informal jobs that receive limited policy attention.

How can the fishing industry address forced labor, with the scope more in focus?

“Important advances have been achieved in increasing adherence to international labour standards in the fishing and seafood processing industries in recent years,” said Luisa Ragher, Ambassador of the European Union (EU) to the Kingdom of Thailand. “However, as the findings of this report clearly show, ensuring decent work for migrant workers is a regional challenge and much more needs to be done.”

The report calls on countries to ratify and fully implement international labor standards on recruitment, work in fishing and forced labor to establish binding minimum protections. It also urges that migrant workers be guaranteed the right to form trade unions and bargain collectively for improved wages and working conditions.

“Decent work deficits in the fishing and seafood processing sector reflect structural weaknesses in how labour and migration are governed across the region,” said Tuomo Poutiainen, ILO deputy regional director for Asia and the Pacific. “Addressing these challenges requires coordinated action by governments, employers and workers to ensure accountability throughout the supply chain.”

Read the full report.

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