Reflecting on years of advocating for migrant fishers' rights, Serve the People Association director Lennon Ying-Dah Wong says that economic pressure from the international community is the most effective way to get Taiwan's government to improve working conditions on the country's fishing boats.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Now this has been an ongoing problem that's been reported to the government. Have you seen any
00:05improvements in the past few years?
00:07Honestly, there are some slight changes. For example, the hostility from the business, from the industries, against the NGOs
00:15like us, has been lessened. It's not that much as before, but
00:20the structure or the fundamental structure is still the same. So the similar things happen,
00:27repeat themselves. There are a lot of root causes.
00:30The business actually abused the agencies, and the agencies in turn abused the workers, the fishermen.
00:37So the fishermen are the most vulnerable. Take one thing for example, the salaries.
00:42Most of the salaries of the fishermen are actually paid by the brokers.
00:47But some
00:49extreme violence is lessened, like the physical violence. We didn't hear so much
00:56physical violence cases like before, but there's still some, but not as
01:01rampant as before. So there are some slight changes, while the whole structure is still the same.
01:07Do we expect to see any change spurred by this report, or what do you think is the best way to affect change?
01:13Well, the reports themselves
01:16seldom really make the changes, I would say, to be honest.
01:19Because there are too many, from Greenpeace, from EJF, from other agencies.
01:26The government, they seldom really do some changes because of the reports.
01:30But they will do some changes because of the yellow card, because of the sanctions, because of the
01:36WRO from the CBP in the US government. So these real warnings or real threats, which will endanger
01:44the business for the industry, this will make the government and the industry change.
01:51So to be honest,
01:52I don't really think the government will really do some real changes
01:56because of this or that report. But if there are more sanctions, they might do. So I will still
02:03encourage the relevant
02:06foreign governments to
02:08monitor the human rights issues on the fishing fleets in Taiwan, and do some things they should
02:14to really push Taiwan to do some real changes.