illegal fishing

ITF Dakar Declaration on Combating IUU Fishing in West Africa

Mark_D — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 13:55:32 +0000

ITF Dakar Declaration on Combating IUU Fishing in West Africa

In West Africa, over 200 million people rely on fish as their primary source of protein. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (UN FAO) State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2024 report, 35% of global fish stocks are now overexploited — more than triple the level recorded in 1974. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, marine pollution and climate change now pose severe threats to livelihoods, food security and national stability across the region.

IUU fishing alone represents up to 40% of all regional catches, costing West African economies more than USD2.3 billion annually. Fisheries are no longer solely an ecological concern — they are a matter of security, governance, and workers’ rights.

IUU fishing refers to activities that violate national or international laws, avoid reporting obligations, or occur in areas or for species where governance structures are inadequate. Its impacts on African states are profound — draining public revenues from taxes, licences and landing fees, and undermining the livelihoods of local artisanal fishing communities.

Key international tools exist — including the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), the International Labour Organization (ILO) Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 (C188), and the Cape Town Agreement (CTA). The CTA remains unratified across many West Africa Fishers Organising Project (WAFOP) countries, and full and proper implementation of PSMA and C188 is urgently needed.

Declaration

We, the undersigned unions and civil society organisations, declare our shared commitment to confront IUU fishing and defend the rights and welfare of all fishers across West Africa. Together, we commit to:

Establishing a Regional IUU Taskforce/Working Group to enhance knowledge-sharing, intelligence exchange, and coordinated action across borders.
Campaigning and lobbying for the full and proper implementation of C188 and the PSMA, ensuring decent work, safe vessels, and IUU and labour-focused port state controls throughout the region.
Campaigning nationally for the CTA ratification across WAFOP countries.
Building a worker‑ and fisheries‑observer‑led advisory group to lead the campaign and ensure worker voices are at its centre.
Learning from one another, documenting national successes and challenges in addressing IUU fishing and using that knowledge to overcome shared barriers.
Developing a joint regional Action Plan for 2026, led by the Working Group.

Planned Activities – ITF, ITF affiliates, and civil society partners

On combating IUU fishing

Awareness‑raising programmes in artisanal fishing communities (building on successful Ghana initiatives).
Collective advocacy for greater transparency, aligned with the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency.
Regular information‑sharing and joint analysis across unions, civil society organisations (CSOs), and observers.
Monthly virtual coordination meetings led by a regional coordinator.
Training on recognising and reporting IUU practices at the artisanal level.
Knowledge exchanges with partners and relevant stakeholders (e.g., satellite tools, vessel tracking and monitoring technologies).
Expanding participatory surveillance programmes in coastal communities.
Integrating labour rights data with IUU risk analysis using tools such as the Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT) database.
Building fishers’ understanding of the criminalisation risks they face when employers order them to engage in illegal fishing.
Advocacy for the national revision of fishing codes to ensure transparency, accountability and gender inclusivity.

For ITF-affiliated trade unions

Strengthening leadership capacity and organisational resilience.
Reinforcing cross‑border collaboration among trade unions to confront IUU fishing collectively.
Promotion of women in fish processing and distribution, including ensuring that supply chains are free from IUU-sourced fish.

Through solidarity, shared knowledge, and coordinated regional action, we reaffirm our commitment to dismantling the structures that enable IUU fishing and to securing dignity, safety and decent work for all fishers across West Africa. Together, we stand united in the fight for justice and sustainable fisheries for future generations.

Dakar declaration signatories:

International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF)

Maritime Dockworkers Union of Ghana (MDU)

National Union of Teamsters and General Workers (NUTEG)

Syndicat National de la Marine Marchande (SNTMM)

Syndicat Nationale de Gens de Mer (SNGMS)

Union Democratique des Travaileurs de Senegal (UDTS)

Syndicat de Marin Pecheurs de Cote d’Ivoire (SYMAPECHI)

Greenpeace Africa

Mark_D 13 Feb 2026

fishers’ rights

illegal fishing

unregulated fishing

Fisheries

Africa

Fight ‘Flags of Non-Compliance’ to secure fishers’ labour rights

Mark_D — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 09:44:00 +0000

Fight ‘Flags of Non-Compliance’ to secure fishers’ labour rights

Eliminating the scourge of ‘Flags of Non-Compliance’ (FONC) is now at the heart of the ITF Fisheries Section’s work.

A major industrial campaign to confront what the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) calls ‘Flags of Non-Compliance’ (FONC) is now set to start – after ITF affiliates from around the world adopted a motion for it at the ITF Congress in Marrakech today.

In what is widely recognised as one of the world’s most dangerous and exploitative industries, fishers all around the world face daily risks to their lives, exploitation and wide-ranging, severe labour rights abuses – all to ensure seafood arrives every day on people’s plates, and all while substantial profits go to the companies at the top of the industry’s opaque, global supply chains.

“This sector is where labour is most exploited – low pay and dangerous, hazardous conditions are common,” said Section Chair for Africa, Barthelemy Kouassi, from Côte d'Ivoire, in opening comments.

“Businesses want profits above any other consideration – and this means our working conditions suffer.

“Fishers, wherever they are, have the right to freely assemble and to have collective agreements - they have the right to decent pay and working conditions. Fishers have the right to an equitable share of the profits reaped by multinationals.”

Similar to the improved pay and standards in the merchant marine that have come about due to the Flags of Convenience (FOC) campaign, the FONC campaign will now seek to do the same: it is a core demand of the Fisheries Section that fishers receive equal treatment to their seafarer colleagues, including receiving, at a minimum, the highest of either the ILO’s minimum basic wage for an able seaman or the minimum wage of the relevant flag state.

“The ITF Fisheries Section is determined to realise its vision of a world where fishers everywhere have the power to win better wages and working conditions,” said ITF Fisheries Section chair, Johnny Hansen.

“We know that proper Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) that incorporate International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 188 on Work in Fishing are vital to empowering fishers to win improved and enforceable working conditions. And we will now set about securing and monitoring CBAs on vessels flying ‘Flags of Non-Compliance’.”

The Fisheries Conference also passed Motion 42, calling for a “decent, safe and healthy working environment in fisheries”. The Motion champions the FONC campaign, the ITF’s supply chain accountability work and the importance of ‘Human Rights Due Diligence’ (HRDD) in the sector and calls for national implementation of ILO Convention 188 on Work in Fishing.

Fisheries Section Second Vice Chair, Angel Juan Navarro, from Sindicato de Obreros Marítimos Unidos (SOMU), tabled Motion 42 and called for its adoption at the Conference.

“The Global South has faced devastation at the hands of fishing fleets from rich countries,” he said.

“There is no doubt that the scarcity of fishing resources caused largely by climate change, IUU [Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated] fishing and the massive increase in fishing licenses issued to Asian and European vessels, have caused job losses, increased poverty and migration to Europe and America.”

With its global remit of work, spanning major fishing fleets on the high seas around the world, and focus areas including union building in Southeast Asia, organising migrant fishers facing forced labour in Asia, Latin America, Africa, the UK, Europe and the USA, tackling IUU fishing, and stopping vessels fishing illegally off West Africa, the Section is braced to organise and coordinate work that will build better working conditions for fishers everywhere.

“Whether it’s organising workers into unions, advocating for regulatory change in international forums or eliminating Flags of Non-Compliance, we’re ready to organise and take action together to deliver a better future for fishers,” Hansen said.

Delegates at the conference also elected Kenji Takahashi, from the Japanese Seamen’s Union (JSU), as 1st Vice Chair.

Notes

The ITF defines a flag as a FONC where any of these instances are met:

a. The flag state does not prevent IUU and labour abuses and does not have proper measures for safety and welfare of fishers. In this case, the flag will be considered as a FONC regardless of where the beneficial ownership of that vessel is located;

b. The flag state denies or fails to protect fundamental labour and human rights of fishers;

c. The flag state fails to prevent IUU fishing, and thereby exposes fishers, especially migrant fishers, to forced labour, human trafficking, and slavery;

d. The beneficial ownership of a vessel is found to be in a different country to the flag that the vessel is flying;

e. The flag state fails to implement and enforce proper measures to secure safety and welfare of fishers on board;

f. The wages on board a fishing vessel are below either the ILO minimum basic wage for an AB or the minimum wage of the flag state.

Mark_D 17 Oct 2024

Global fisheries conference marks progress for workers as battle shifts to retailers and consumers

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 07:58:04 +0000

Global fisheries conference marks progress for workers as battle shifts to retailers and consumers

Unions representing more than 129,000 fishers are gathering in Amsterdam over the next two days to set their agenda for advancing fishers’ rights, safety and working conditions.

The International Transport Workers’ Federation’s (ITF) Fisheries Section Conference brings together 89 fishers’ unions from 59 countries, alongside activists from fishers’ rights networks and academic leaders, to mark progress and shape the next five years of action.

“Fisheries remains a sector where the fundamental labour rights of workers are routinely trampled on, particularly of those in and from the global south,” said Johnny Hansen, ITF Fisheries Section Chair.

The industry remains one of the most exploitative industries in the world:

128,000 fishers are trapped aboard fishing vessels in situations of forced labour, according to estimates in September by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
At least 24,000 fishers are killed each year at work with many more seriously injured according to estimates from the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
Despite making up 55 percent of the workforce in the United Kingdom, migrant fishers work longer hours for less pay than local workers and are fearful of speaking out even as 35 percent report being subjected to violence at work. This treatment of migrant fishers, where they do not have the same rights as local workers, is commonplace globally.

“With ever-expanding fishing fleets particularly in China, irresponsible fishing practices and mounting pressure to cut costs across supply chains – we have seen the exploitation of fishers spread to every corner of the globe,” said Hansen.

Hansen, who joined the industry as a fisher in 1982 said that across the world governments had allowed businesses to compete unchecked, with little protection in place for workers across their supply chains.

“Governments disregard labour safeguards to encourage and increase competition. Instead of protecting the fundamental labour rights of fishers, they have let corporations pursue methods to get products to market more cheaply at the expense of workers, further eroding fishers’ already exploitatively low labour standards.”

“This is why our agenda has shifted. It is only possible through building workers’ power across supply chains and ensuring that all actors including governments, seafood companies and retailers are held accountable for the labour standards from the top to the bottom of fisheries supply chains,” said Hansen.

The conference comes at a time where supply chain accountability is increasingly important to a new generation of ethical consumers, and when many governments are strengthening laws and legalisation on accountability, transparency and human rights due diligence.

Johnny Hansen, Chair of the ITF Fisheries Section, joined the industry as a fisher in 1982. | (Credit: NSU)

Global solidarity

Delegates in Amsterdam will hear how the ITF and affiliated unions are doing critical work globally to win regulation that secures fishers’ rights. Working alongside fishers in Southeast Asia, West Africa, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, the ITF and its partners have supported the formation of fishers’ rights networks as the foundations for workers to build their own independent trade unions.

“There are so many who try to cheat fishers – the crewing agents, the owners. We are taking action for equality for every fisher who calls Ireland home,” said Noel Addablah, a migrant fisher from Ghana who is attending the conference and who came to Ireland on the promise of decent work and good wages, to find an industry riddled with abuse, racism, and exploitative working conditions.

Noel Addablah became involved in the ITF-supported Fishers' Rights Network after coming to Ireland in 2018 as a migrant fisher from Ghana. He found 'an industry riddled with abuse, racism, and exploitative working conditions'. | (Credit: ITF)

The conference will celebrate recent important milestones in the global fight for decent work:

In Ireland, almost a decade of campaigning by the ITF for fishers’ rights has seen the government commit to abolishing its deeply fraught Atypical Working Scheme used to recruit migrant fishers to the country. Irish legislation will move from tying fishers’ residency status to their ongoing employment with a vessel owner and replace it with visa routes that provide migrant workers with the legal safeguards enjoyed by Irish nationals and a pathway to citizenship.
In Thailand, the ITF has assisted thousands of Burmese and Cambodian migrant fishers to establish and build the Fishers Rights Network (FRN). The FRN has mobilised fishers to stand up and protect their rights by bargaining seafood supply chain agreements, and health and safety agreements with suppliers and vessel owners. The ITF’s efforts to build a democratic trade union for fishers in Thailand, alongside pressure from partners in the region, forced Thailand to become the first country in Asia to ratify the C188 in January 2019.

The ITF is calling on the key fisheries nations of Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, to urgently ratify ILO Convention C188, the international law that protects fishers' rights and decent working conditions. In addition to laying out minimum working conditions, the convention makes clear fishers’ fundamental civil and labour rights – including the right to form and join trade unions. Without its ratification and implementation governments can continue to turn a blind eye to the ongoing exploitation of fishers either working at home or abroad

Safety. Health. Medical care. These are all essential rights for fishers. 🦺 🚑More nations need to #RatifyC188 to make sure sick and injured fishers get the care they need on board — and onshore. pic.twitter.com/KLkI8I9udt
— International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) (@ITFglobalunion) December 6, 2022

Amongst the 20 governments that had ratified C188 already, the ITF will be pushing for them to fulfil their obligations to effective implement and enforce laws to protect workers in their fishing industry. ITF Fisheries affiliates will continue to campaign for the unconditional support of fishers’ fundamental trade union rights, including the right to freely associate and collectively bargain the terms and conditions of employment—regardless of nationality or residency status. This will include putting pressure on countries, like Thailand, to ratify ILO Conventions 87 and 98 that cover workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Cover image: Pictured is fisher Christopher Kwesi, working in Northern Ireland with another unknown fisher. (Credit: Marley Monacello, CIW)

Anonymous (not verified) 05 Dec 2022

maritime labour convention

From catcher to counter: new FAO declaration good news for fishers - IUF/ITF

Rory_M — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 21:53:36 +0000

From catcher to counter: new FAO declaration good news for fishers - IUF/ITF

Joint statement from the IUF and the ITF on the adoption of the 2021 Declaration for Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture by the FAO’s Committee on Fisheries (COFI)

Global union federations the IUF[i] and the ITF[ii] welcome the adoption of the Declaration for Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture at the 34th Session of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' (FAO) Committee on Fisheries (COFI), February 5, 2021.

In particular, we welcome the commitment from states to “Promote the attainment of safe, healthy and fair working conditions for all in the sector, support efforts to prevent and halt forced labour, facilitate access to social protection programmes for fishers and aquaculture producers and their communities, support measures to improve safety at sea, and work towards enhancing the standards of living for all in the sector, in cooperation with other relevant international organizations, including the International Labour Organization and the International Maritime Organization.”

We also welcome the recognition of the role of women in achieving food security and that COFI member stateshave a role to play in ensuring “women’s empowerment by enhancing women’s full access to and equal opportunities in the fisheries and aquaculture sector through gender-based policies, taking effective action against discrimination and abuse in the workplace, facilitating women’s access to education and training…and providing equal opportunities at all levels, including for leadership and decision making, and by combating systemic gender inequalities that disadvantage women.”

The Declaration also recognises the progress of coordinated measures by states in the protection of ocean environments and preservation of bio resources, achieved since the adoption of the Code of Conduct on Responsible Fisheries in 1995.

For further information contact: iuf@iuf.org and media@itf.org

[i] The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) is a global union federation of trade unions with members in a variety of industries, including fish and seafood farming, processing, service and distribution.

[ii] The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is a democratic global union federation of transport workers' trade unions, representing a combined membership of 19.7 million workers in all industrial transport sectors, including fisheries.