Seafarers in fishing: A year into the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This paper builds on our earlier publication that examined COVID-19, instability and migrant fish workers in Asia during the initial six months of the pandemic. Drawing on interviews with port-based support organizations and various other international organizations, we outline how pre-existing structural marginalizations of seafarers in distant water fishing has made them particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of pandemic management policies for seafarers. We focus our analysis on obstacles to crew change and reduced access to crucial shore services. The basis of these longer term marginalizations includes the exclusion of fishing from the Maritime Labor Convention, the marginal status of fishing among global organizations concerned with seafarers, the dispersed ownership of fishing vessels compared to concentrated corporate ownership in shipping, lack of unionization, and frequent inaccessibility of consular assistance in fishing ports. We also highlight differences among important fishing ports, showing that repatriation of crew and access to shore services is the outcome of negotiation among a constellation of port-based actors.