cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51973154

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Here is the report: Unseen and unaccountable: The growing threat of China’s squid fleet in the South Pacific - (pdf)

• A new report from U.K.-based NGO the Environmental Justice Foundation draws on interviews with 81 fishers, mainly Indonesian sailors who worked between 2021 and 2025 on 60 Chinese vessels targeting jumbo flying squid (Dosidicus gigas) in the Southeast Pacific Ocean.
• It documents frequent labor abuses affecting crew members, including several indicators of forced labor as described by the International Labour Organization.
• The report also documents regular shark finning, targeted hunting of marine mammals, and involvement in suspected illegal fishing incidents, often inside Ecuador, Peru or Chile’s exclusive economic zones.
• The report was launched days before the annual meeting of the commission of the South Pacific Regional Fishery Management Organisation, the intergovernmental body that manages the fishery. Officials with fishing organizations mentioned in the report and members of China’s delegation to the meeting did not respond to Mongabay’s request for comment on the report.

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Labor abuses including violence, debt bondage and withheld wages and medical care, overfishing, shark finning, marine mammal killings: A new report exposes bad practices and a weak regulatory framework governing the jumbo flying squid fishery in the Southeast Pacific Ocean. The report was launched on Feb. 19, just days before the annual meeting of the commission of the South Pacific Regional Fishery Management Organisation (SPRFMO), the intergovernmental body that manages the fishery.

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In some cases the capture of sharks and marine mammals was accidental, according to the testimonies; in others it was intentional. Some videos show fishers finning sharks — cutting fins off living sharks, then throwing them into the sea to die. Shark fins are an expensive delicacy in some Asian countries.

[…]

“He complained that he was sick, but he wasn’t allowed to leave,” an Indonesian fisher EJF interviewed in September 2025 said, recounting the two months of illness that preceded the death of one of his colleagues at sea in April. “He was forced to work,” the fisher said, “became severe in February” and “wasn’t allowed to leave.”

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Dismal labor conditions and illegal fishing by China’s fleet have been documented in several news reports from recent years, including by Mongabay and The New Yorker, as well as in reports by EJF and other organizations.

[…]