Abstract
abstractRecent media attention on human rights abuses in the fishing sector, precipitated by undercover investigations from nongovernmental organizations and investigative journalists (e.g., Environmental Justice Foundation [EJF] 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Mendoza, McDowell, Mason, and Htusan 2016), has prompted calls from the scientific community for increased transdisciplinary and empirical research of fisheries’ social dimensions, such as labor (Kittinger et al. 2017). Given views that social and ecological systems are interdependent (Ostrom 2009), the need for theory development to explicate pathways for how this interdependence occurs and the potential for using policy and practices for intervention and prevention exist. Integrating ecological data and economics and human rights theory, Brashares and colleagues’ (2014) wildlife decline and social conflict framework offered a hypothesis about the negative association between fish stock declines and child slavery. Yet, more precision in terminology, pathways, and feedbacks may be warranted. With the aim of exploring empirical, conceptual, and theoretical support for Brashares et al.’s (2014) pathways, the revised theory developed in this article posits how forced labor slavery and environmental decline in marine fisheries may be linked.
Highlights
Recent media attention on human rights abuses in the fishing sector, precipitated by undercover investigations from non-governmental organizations and investigative journalists (e.g., Environmental Justice Foundation [EJF] 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Mendoza et al 2016), has prompted calls from the scientific community for increased transdisciplinary and empirical research of fisheries’ social dimensions such as labor (Kittinger et al 2017)
Instead starting with a theoretical framework can help elucidate how and when the potential for labor exploitation occurs in the fisheries sector; identify feedbacks wherein forced labor slavery contributes to environmental decline; and inform labor and fisheries practices, management, and policies in the absence of empirical data to simultaneously minimize labor abuses of fishers and environmental decline
Whereas the socioeconomic context provides the “supply,” the industry context creates the “demand.” Research suggests that modern forced labor slavery is most likely to occur in industries reliant on manual labor, exhibiting high labor intensity and low technological development, and operating in the informal economy under poor regulations (Bales 2012, 2016; Chuang 2006; Crane 2013; International Labour Organization (ILO) 2009)
Summary
The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labor (1930) defines forced labor as “all work or service which is extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily” (Convention 29, Article 2). The persistence of forced labor slavery in marine fisheries (International Labor Rights Forum [ILRF] 2018) warrants a challenge to the dominant paradigm that has seemingly not produced reductions in the problem This new discourse, instead, should consider contributing factors external to social vulnerabilities (e.g., environmental decline) that may influence the use of forced labor by creating a demand for free or cheap labor. It should question the framing of slavery’s contributions to illegal and overfishing, wherein isolated environmental policies lacking an understanding of forced labor slavery’s contributions to environmental decline may inadvertently blame or punish slavery victims This potentially more holistic understanding of social-ecological marine systems and subsequent appropriately targeted and multifaceted interventions could advance the field by shifting it from reactive to preventive practices. Support for each construct and pathway in the revised framework will be described below
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