Taiwan's government has opened an investigation after 10 Indonesian fishers complained they went 15 months without being paid.
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00:00Indonesian fisher Yulkifi Somena is relieved to be back on dry land. He spent 15 gruelling
00:09months at sea catching tuna on board a Taiwanese fishing ship. It was only when he got back
00:15to port that he found out he hadn't been paid. And worse, while he was on the ship, his wife
00:21had a miscarriage.
00:22I regret that I didn't accompany my wife when she was born. I feel guilty. Even though I
00:32couldn't send Spencer any money, I feel guilty.
00:38He's one of ten crew members on the Taiwan-flagged ship Youfu, who say they were tricked into
00:43such a long voyage and suffered abuse at the hands of their captain, without enough food,
00:48drinking water and medicine. While on the ship, they slept just a few hours a day, and
00:54only received their salaries weeks after returning to shore.
00:58The ship's owners, a Taiwanese husband and wife, reject the accusations of mistreatment
01:03and say payments were delayed because they ran into financial trouble.
01:19But the ship's crew and human rights activists warn that this case is indicative of the abuse
01:25migrant fishers working on Taiwanese ships receive at sea.
01:30Taiwan has the second largest distant water fishing fleet in the world, made up of more
01:34than 1,000 ships like these. They usually spend months at sea without docking at port,
01:41and rely on the work of tens of thousands of migrant labourers, mainly from the Philippines
01:45and Indonesia.
01:48These migrants do not receive the same labour rights protections as other workers in Taiwan.
01:53The country's tuna industry is worth US$1.3 billion each year, but many fishers say they're
01:59recruited with false promises and forced to work under poor conditions by employers and
02:04agents who withhold their passports and wages.
02:08There are systematic failures that led to their condition, such as no means of communication
02:13at sea, expensive and limited options while they're in distant ports, and this is the
02:18norm for the fishers.
02:21The government knows the situation for migrant fishers is a stain on the country's strong
02:24human rights record, and officials say they've been trying to clean up the industry.
02:43But the industry is struggling from dwindling sea stock and rising operational costs, increasing
02:54pressure on those at sea and on shore. Migrant fishers, like the crew of Youfu, bear the
03:00brunt of the industry's dangerous, labour-intensive work. But, they say, there is a limit to what
03:06they can endure to give their families back home a better life.
03:10I'm Andy Schwer, and Rick Lowatt, in Pingdong County, for Taiwan Plus.