HRC Starts New Research Project with Plan International on Labour Supply Chain Mapping for the Philippines Commercial Fishing Vessels

Humanity Research Consultancy (HRC) is beginning to work on Plan International’s new project – Labour Supply Chain Mapping for the Philippines Commercial Fishing Vessels Operating in International Waters – launched under the SAFE Seas (The Safeguarding Against and Addressing Fishers’ Exploitation at Sea) project

This project supports the objective of the SAFE Seas project, which is to combat forced labour and trafficking in persons (FL/TIP) on fishing vessels in Indonesia and the Philippines.

HRC had previously taken on a similar consultancy task, “Labour Supply Chain Mapping for Indonesia and Foreign Fishing Vessels,” under the SAFE Seas project which focuses on the labour rights and relevant recruitment practices in Indonesia’s fishery. For more information, please click here.

In this project, the HRC team will conduct a labour supply chain mapping of the Filipino fishers in the following selected countries: Taiwan, China, South Korea, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon islands. The intended outcomes are 1) combating labour exploitation, especially FL/TIP on fishing vessels operating in international waters through better enforcement systems, and 2) decreasing the risks of labour exploitation on Filipino fishing vessels.

To achieve the above mentioned, the team seeks to facilitate focus groups discussions and conduct interviews with key stakeholders, including but not limited to key members of the Safe Fish Alliance (SFA), staff from Filipino recruitment agencies, fishing vessels owners and/or employers of the fishers, key decision makers, and members for international and local CSOs in the Philippines.

With the potential to support the advancement of fishers’ management and placement regulations, policies for fair recruitment, and remuneration schemes, the HRC team will develop a set of policy recommendations upon completion of the data collection phase of the project. It is expected that these recommendations will help inform the decision makers of policy options to improve the current private sector policy, procedures for responsible recruitment, and remuneration schemes that benefit the fishers.

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