unregulated 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

Mile 201 exploitation in South Atlantic risks environmental catastrophe and livelihoods of regional fishers, unions warn

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 16:46:52 +0000

Mile 201 exploitation in South Atlantic risks environmental catastrophe and livelihoods of regional fishers, unions warn

An environmental catastrophe is looming in the South Atlantic because unregulated ships are over-fishing, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and affiliated Latin American unions have warned.

“Because it’s done beyond the region of the Atlantic regulated by Argentina, this fishing is not technically illegal,” said Chris Williams of the ITF Fisheries Section. “However, there is a clear obligation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for States to reach agreements to manage fish stocks. That simply hasn’t happened here.

“The ITF and its affiliated unions in the region call on all countries whose ships are fishing the region to urgently come together with Argentina and agree precautionary quotas based on scientific evidence. Otherwise, we fear important fish species will be wiped out and no-one will be able to make a living fishing there.”

The high seas in the South West Atlantic are the only region of the world’s oceans without a functioning UN regional fisheries management organisation (RFMO). Negotiations to create such a body are greatly complicated by the long-running territorial dispute between Argentina and the UK over the Malvinas/Falkland Islands which sit on the southern edge of the problem region.

Lights from the largely foreign-owned fleet coalescing around ‘Mile 201’, at the limit of Argentina’s EEZ. | (Credit: CLG Noticias)

Unregulated fishing proliferates

The livelihoods of Latin American fishers are being deeply impacted by foreign ships from South Korea, China, Taiwan, Spain and elsewhere fishing in the area off Argentina known as Mile 201. Argentina regulates fishing up to 200 nautical miles (370km) from its coast, but the region east of that is unregulated and has become a hotspot for large-scale operations.

A report (in Spanish) from Latin American socio-environmental journalist Sabina Goldaracena, commissioned by the ITF and published in December 2022, estimates that the number of fishing vessels in the region has doubled over the last fifteen years. The number of Chinese ships alone increased from 271 in 2020 to 375 in 2021, according to data from the Argentine Naval Prefecture.

The report estimates that stocks of fish, particularly squid and hake, are becoming overfished.

“We have to get the balance right,” said Ariel Sudan of Argentine fishers’ union Centro De Patrones Y Oficiales Fluviales De Pesca Y De Cabotaje Maritimo. “It’s vital for the livelihoods of our region’s fishers that we protect the sustainability of the species in our seas."

In workshops organised by the ITF in Montevideo, Uruguay, at the end of 2022, unions from the region agreed that the situation in the area known as Mile 201 has become critical. They called on governments around the world to urgently take action on this issue, and meet their UN obligations.

END

Image credits: CLG Noticias

About the ITF: The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is a democratic, affiliate-led federation of transport workers’ unions recognised as the world’s leading transport authority. We fight passionately to improve working lives; connecting trade unions and workers’ networks from 147 countries to secure rights, equality and justice for their members. We are the voice of the almost-20 million women and men who move the world.

Media contact: media@itf.org.uk

admin 22 Feb 2023