International report on crew abuse highlights abuse in New Zealand waters

As the Mari­time Uni­on fights for the rights of sea­farers in New Zea­l­and waters, a new report from the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) to the United Nations paints a dis­turb­ing pic­ture of abuses of human rights at sea.
The report names the case of the ‘Sky 75’ in New Zea­l­and waters as one of “ruth­less exploit­a­tion of fish­ing crews.”
The New Zea­l­and ITF and Mari­time Uni­on took action when 10 Indone­sian crew left the Korean registered fish­ing ves­sel ‘Sky 75’ in the Port of Nel­son in Septem­ber 2005.
Crew mem­bers on the ‘Sky 75’ repor­ted abuse, harsh work­ing con­di­tions and extremely poor con­di­tions.
The ITF report “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” warns that as a res­ult of recruit­ing scams, ves­sel aban­don­ment and vir­tu­al forced labour, some sea­farers and fish­ers are suf­fer­ing hor­rif­ic abuse.
The report is being presen­ted at a United Nations mari­time law sum­mit held in New York start­ing today 12 June until 16 June 2006.
The report exposes some of the ter­rible con­di­tions inflic­ted on some sea­farers and fish­ers, and high­lights sys­tem­ic fail­ures in reg­u­la­tion and prac­tice.
“The mari­time and fish­ing indus­tries con­tin­ue to allow aston­ish­ing abuses of human rights of those work­ing in the sec­tor,” says the report.
Mari­time Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Tre­vor Han­son says the report totally vin­dic­ates the strong stance of the Uni­on on the issue.
Since the Sky 75 there have been sev­er­al oth­er ser­i­ous incid­ents since the ‘Sky 75’, includ­ing crews jump­ing ship from the ‘San Lib­er­atore’ and ‘Marinui’, and more recently a Ukrain­i­an crew onboard the ‘Malak­hov Kur­gan’ in Lyt­telton who had to go on strike to be paid the min­im­um wage.
“These are just the cases we have picked up on – I have no doubt these are the tip of the ice­berg,” says Mr Han­son.
The ITF report fol­lows a 2005 joint report from the Aus­trali­an Gov­ern­ment, the ITF, and the glob­al con­ser­va­tion organ­iz­a­tion WWF, that revealed the pil­la­ging of threatened fish stocks, human rights abuses and glob­al pir­ate fish­ing oper­a­tions were all linked prob­lems.

The ITF report Out of Sight, Out of Mind can be down­loaded at the webpage list­ing ITF pub­lic­a­tions:
http://www.itfglobal.org/infocentre/pubs.cfm

The Aus­trali­an Government/ITF/WWF report “The Chan­ging Nature of High Seas Fish­ing: How Flags of Con­veni­ence provide cov­er for illeg­al, unre­por­ted and unreg­u­lated (IUU) fish­ing” can be down­loaded at:
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/iiumr.pdf