The plight of fishworkers on board vessels engaged in commercial fishing operations calls for regulating their conditions of work and providing protection benefits. Concern over the conditions of fishworkers on board commercial fishing vessels was thrown into high relief in the Philippines in 2018. This was during a series of consultations that sought out small-scale fishers and fishworkers on the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines). Fishworkers who are employed or made to work in such vessels venturing into distant waters are prone to abuse in view of the distance and the physical impossibility of monitoring their activities while at sea.