Stella Maris joins maritime charities in urging Home Secretary to improve protection for UK overseas fishers

The maritime charity Stella Maris has criticised the government for failing to protect migrant workers in the UK fishing industry from “inhuman and degrading treatment”.

It noted in a joint letter to the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood that “systemic weaknesses” in the UK immigration system, labour market enforcement and the regulation of the fishing industry had “created the conditions in which the exploitation of migrant fishers flourish”.

The charity is raising concerns about conditions which enable abuses, human trafficking and modern slavery. It has urged the government to take action “as a matter of urgency”.

The call came after Stella Maris shared examples of migrant workers being mistreated including an alarming rise in the numbers of seafarers abandoned by shipowners without money or support.

The charity is proposing 10 key reforms concerning immigration status, employment rights, recruitment and enforcement, adding that it would be ready to support the government in implementing the reforms.

One key proposal concerns the introduction of a Workplace Justice Visa, which would enable exploited migrant fishers to remain lawfully in the UK while pursuing justice via an employment claim or by working with labour market enforcement and criminal investigations. Stella Maris said the reforms are “essential to improving labour standards and protecting workers’ rights across the UK fishing industry”.

“The UK government can no longer maintain that the fishing industry should build a sustain- able domestic workforce while permitting it to depend on under- paid, exploited migrant workers,” it added in the letter also signed by Focus on Labour Exploitation, International Transport Workers’ Federation Fisheries Section, Nautilus International, The Seafarers’ Charity and Ethical Trading Initiative.

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