‘155 000 victims of modern slavery in SA’ 4 December 2020

Slave labour is growing without check in the fishing and agricultural sectors, resulting in widespread abuse of workers and human trafficking. A senior analyst on human trafficking and forced labour at the non-profit Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), Irina Bukharin, says fishermen working on distant-water fishing vessels, harvesting fishes on high seas, are more vulnerable to poor working conditions. “They are especially vulnerable when they are at sea, unable to leave and less likely to have access to functioning means of communication with the outside world,” she says.

…NGO workers have described the exploitation of fishermen off of South Africa’s shore as being “rife and rampant”. Many cite the lack of regulatory oversight and the weight of the multibillion-dollar fishing industry as reasons for the widespread abuse of workers. “The multi crimes affecting the global fisheries sector range from illegal fishing and extraction of marine resources to human trafficking and forced labour, fraud, forgery, corruption, money laundering and tax and customs evasion,” “Much of the illegal global multi-crime activity linked with fishing is happening off the coast of South Africa, Namibia, and the east coast of Africa. The fishing vessels don’t need to go into our harbours, they make their transshipments offshore. It’s all happening in front of us,” says Professor Hennie van As, who is the director of Fish Force, Africa’s Fisheries Law Enforcement Academy.

…According to the Global Slavery Index report released in 2018, there were an estimated 155 000 people living in modern slavery in South Africa. With the agriculture sector having the highest number of victims of forced labour. Linda Lipparoni, the chief executive of Wine and Agricultural Ethical Trading Association says that while forced and bonded labour in the South African agricultural sector often goes undetected, they are committed to improving labour conditions for farm workers. “Over the last 10 years, the wine and fruit industries have been committed to improving labour conditions for farm workers and have demonstrated this commitment through the participation in ethical audits and continuous improvement programmes.” Slave labour, specifically for agricultural work, in South Africa goes as far back as 1658, when the first slaves arrived in the Cape.