Migrant workers ‘exploited and beaten’ on UK fishing boats

theguardian.com:

A third of migrant workers on UK fishing vessels work 20-hour shifts, and 35% report regular physical violence, according to new research that concludes there is rampant exploitation and abuse on British ships.

“Leaving is not possible because I’m not allowed off the vessel to ask for help,” one migrant worker told researchers at the University of Nottingham Rights Lab, which focuses on modern slavery. They found fishers reported working excessive hours, with few breaks, on an average salary of £3.51 an hour.

Interviews with migrant workers on fishing boats across the UK revealed experiences of racism and many accounts of “extreme violence”, including two reported incidents of graphic and sexually violent acts, it said.

Workers from the Philippines, Indonesia, Ghana, Sri Lanka and India are recruited into the UK fishing industry on “transit visas”, a loophole that “legalises their exploitation”, according to the report, Letting Exploitation Off the Hook. Seafarers’ transit visas are intended to allow crew to join ships leaving UK ports for international waters, such as a container ship to China, for example.

These visas tie workers to a single employer. This leaves them dependent on the ship’s captains for their working and living conditions, such as access to food and other essentials, and prevents them changing jobs. Workers can then potentially be abused and controlled by rogue shipowners.

In a separate briefing published this week, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) outlined its own findings on the use of transit visas, suggesting it was leading to “systematic” labour exploitation of migrants on UK vessels. It called for the closure of the loophole that allows the visas to be used on fishing vessels.

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