Seoul, South Korea – A fleet of Chinese fishing vessels from 2019 to 2024 violated UN bans and many people have apparently suffered abuse, including being trapped at sea for years, a report said.
The Environmental Justice Foundation, a London-based organization specializing in environmental and human rights issues, said it identified the presence of 12 Chinese tuna long-lined people operated by North Koreans in the southwest of the Indian Ocean. The report is based primarily on interviews with 19 Indonesian and Filipinos who worked with them.
“Testimation received from Indonesian and Filipino crews shows that a joint effort has been made to conceal the presence of North Koreans on these ships and in some cases, the North Koreans on board have been forced to work at sea for up to 10 Years – in some cases – report said: “Never set foot on land. ”
It added: “This will constitute a strong labor, which exceeds most of the labor that is already full of abuse in the global fishing industry.”
The group said North Koreans moved from ships to ships to prevent them from returning to the land. It quoted unidentified Asian crew members saying their North Korean crew members were not allowed to use their cell phones or leave the vessel during port visits.
The group said it could not estimate the number of North Koreans on Chinese ships due to the transfer.
Using North Korean crew members would violate a 2017 UN Security Council resolution, requiring member states not to issue work permits to North Koreans and to repatriate all remaining North Korean workers to their territory by the end of 2019.
After North Korea conducted nuclear and long-range missile tests, sanctions were imposed by violating earlier Council resolutions.
The group said the use of North Korean crew also appeared to bypass the UK and EU legal frameworks, aiming to prevent North Korean-made goods from entering its supply chain. The EJF said it also found that ships suspected of collecting fish from Chinese ships entered major Asian markets, including Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
Along with Russia, China has alleged that it has incompletely imposed UN sanctions on North Korea and has rejected U.S.-led efforts to strengthen sanctions on North Korea despite banning weapons testing.
When asked about the EJF report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told the brief on Monday that he was not familiar with it, but China said that under the law and regulations, China conducted maritime fishing.
Lin said that relevant cooperation between China and North Korea was also carried out “within the framework of international law.”
EJF said this is the first time that North Korean laborers have publicly recorded on distant water fishing boats.
Before the 2019 United Nations deadline, it was reported that thousands of North Koreans worked abroad, mainly in factories and restaurants in China, as well as logging camps and construction sites in Russia, to introduce much-needed foreign currencies.
North Korean workers, as security agents in their country are constantly surveillance, work more than 12 hours a day and take a small portion of their salary home, and send the rest to the government, according to defectors and experts. .
Despite the ban on the United Nations, South Korean officials and experts believe that many North Korean workers are still engaged in economic activities around the world and pass on funds used in northern nuclear weapons programs.
