Pacific nations coordinate crackdown on forced labour aboard transshipment vessels

A joint inspection regime targets at-sea transshipment, the practice that keeps fishing crews at sea for years and beyond the reach of port-based labour inspections.

Eight Pacific port states have agreed to coordinated inspections of refrigerated carrier vessels, targeting the transshipment practices that enable distant-water fleets to keep crews at sea indefinitely — a documented pathway to debt bondage and physical abuse.

Seafood buyers are being urged to require vessel-level traceability and crew contract verification, as retailers face growing pressure to demonstrate their tuna and squid supply chains are free of forced labour.