FAO.org

Seafood value chains are of great importance for the economies of developing countries and contribute to 54 percent of the total value of international fishery trade worldwide. Seafood supply chains also provide employment and greatly contribute to the livelihoods and food security of women and men engaged in fishing, fish farming, fish processing and distribution.

However, media investigations have recently brought the spotlight on exploitative practices on board fishing vessels and in processing plants. Modern-day slavery instances, debt bondage, child labour, poor occupational safety and health seem to be widespread with cases reported all over the globe. Furthermore, poor working and living conditions are frequently coupled with illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities and other crimes. The media reports certainly represented a wake-up call for operators in the sector.

Against this background, on the 4th of October, FAO organized the Vigo Dialogue on Decent Work in Fisheries and Aquaculture. The Dialogue was attended by around 75 participants including representatives of retailers, seafood industry, trade unions, governments, civil society, certification schemes, ILO and FAO with a view to discuss actions to promote and ensure the application of labour and human rights in the fish business. In particular, the meeting called for ratification of ILO Convention 188 on Work in Fishing and for more effective and coordinated multi-agency labour inspections on board fishing vessels. Some participants also suggested the development of an international binding instrument providing for specific labour standards for the seafood sector, all along the seafood supply chain.

The disucssion focused also on the challenges of ensuring responsible sourcing of seafood products. Participants were informed of important ongoing processes such as ILO's efforts to ensure decent work in global supply chains, as well as the promotion of international human rights due diligence instruments such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains. It was recognized that buyers will increasingly demand that the seafood industry does apply risk-based due diligence measures throughout seafood supply chains.

A number of multi-stakeholders programs, retail consortia and seafood eco-labelling and certification schemes are starting to include social and labour rights issues into their auditing requirements. What is cross-cutting is a general convergence towards the need of ensuring responsible sourcing solutions of seafood products, and the need to ensure social development and human rights for seafood workers along the whole value chain and the sector.

FAO has longed worked to ensure environmental sustainability of living aquatic resources. But all the way from the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries to the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Small-Scale Fisheries the human dimension of fishing operations has been acquiring a central role in the work of FAO's Fisheries and Aquaculture Department.

The Vigo Dialogue's discussion will be informing the work of FAO and the discussions of social and labour issues in the COFI Sub-Committee on Fish-Trade, programmed for the end of 2017 in Busan, Republic of Korea.