Another Legal Action Taken to Stop Seafood Imports Tied to the Investigation
On November 16, 2023, a non-profit organization in Washington D.C. filed a legal petition with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) asking the agency to stop all squid from entering the country tied to the Wei Yu 18, a Chinese distant water squid fishing vessel identified in an investigation conducted by The Outlaw Ocean Project. Fadhil, a young Indonesian man, worked on this ship in the months before his death.
The organization that filed the petition, known as a Withhold Release Order (WRO) petition, is the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, which, according to its website, advocates for strong enforcement of the law to protect the public from corporate abuse. The relevant law that the organization is using is Section 307 of the United States Tariff Act of 1930, which prohibits the importation of all goods produced wholly or in part abroad by forced or prison labor.
The basis of the recent WRO petition is the investigation and, specifically, its revelations of a wide pattern of environmental and human rights concerns across the Chinese distant-water squid fishing fleet. The petition filed on November 16, 2023 is focused on the Wei Yu 18. Among the types of evidence that the petition cites from the investigation are recruitment contracts and payment records, phone and Whatsapp interviews with Indonesian crewmembers on the vessel, supply-chain tracing, and eyewitness accounts of abuse on the vessel. The investigation found that the Wei Yu 18 used forced labor of Indonesian migrant workers to harvest squid.
The recent WRO petition comes amid wider and growing calls for federal authorities to act in response to the investigation, including another Withhold Release Order (WRO) petition submitted by the Human Trafficking Legal Center on October 26, 2023, against the squid fishing vessel Zhen Fa 7. Since the publication of the investigation in early October, the CBP has received repeated calls from lawmakers, Congressional Hearings, Congressional Subcommittees, academics, and advocacy groups to use its full authority to stop seafood caught with forced labor from entering the United States. Pressure has been especially focused on CBP and for it to use WROs.
For example, on October 24, Representative Chris Smith and Senator Jeffrey Merkley sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (which oversees CBP) requested that the agency “issue WROs for all seafood processing facilities” in two Chinese provinces as a result of the findings from the Outlaw Ocean Project’s investigation. One of those provinces is Liaoning, where North Korean workers were found to be in factories exporting to the US in violation of US federal law (CAATSA). The other province is Shandong, where Xinjiang workers were found to be working at plants exporting to the US, in violation of another US federal law (UFLPA). On October 20, U.S. lawmakers, Representative Raúl M. Grijalva and Representative Jared Huffman, sent a letter to CBP, citing the investigation, insisting the agency “use the full authority granted under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930” to stop seafood produced using forced labor in China from entering the United States.
There is growing expectation that the U.S. government intends to increase its enforcement against seafood imports. On November 13, 2023, Skadden Arps, one of the largest law firms in the U.S., published a "client alert" citing the investigation and predicting a possible uptick in seafood imports being blocked by CBP due to ties to Xinjiang or other forced labor. This follows calls from within the seafood industry itself for fuller implementation of authorities granted to U.S. government agencies, including by industry groups such as the At-Sea Processors Association and the Southern Shrimp Alliance. These calls to action come in response to the revelations of the investigation into labor transfers from Xinjinag to Shandong seafood processing facilities. Several major U.S. seafood companies cut ties with Chinese seafood processors after being presented with evidence from the investigation tying products on their shelves to forced labor.
CBP is authorized to detain any shipment that is believed to contain goods made with forced labor at any U.S. port of entry. Since 2020, CBP has issued at least five WROs targeting the seafood industry. So far, these WROs have largely targeted vessels fishing for tuna while other fleets exposed to human rights and labor concerns have avoided scrutiny.
The focus of the November 16, 2023, WRO petition is Fadhil, an Indonesian deckhand who worked on the Wei Yu 18. On August 28, 2018, Fadhil boarded the Wei Yu 18 in the port of Busan, South Korea. Carrying a crew of 10 Indonesians and 20 Chinese, the ship traveled for several weeks to the coast of South America to fish just outside the national waters of Chile, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador, near the Galapagos. Working 12- to 24-hour shifts, the men typically slept during the day. Drinking water was rust-colored and tasted like metal, while their Chinese counterparts drank bottled water. They were only given salt water for bathing. Since they were Muslims, the Indonesian deckhands picked out the pork that the Chinese cook seemed to always mix into the noodles he prepared.
By August 2019, after being at sea for over a year, the Wei Yu 18 was gripped by an outbreak of thiamine deficiency disorders, such as beriberi. The two Indonesian deckhands who contracted the disease first were transported by another fishing ship to shore, where they received treatment, recovered and then flew home. Fadhil fell ill in September. He was given expired pills, the equivalent of ibuprofen. He and other deckhands asked for him to be allowed to go home or to the hospital but the foreman said no. A copy of Fadhil’s contract indicates that he was only required to do a one-year at-sea tour, which was already completed. But the Wei Yu 18’s foreman told Fadhil he was required to stay for two years, according to other deckhands. It took less than a month for Fadhil to die.
Two days after Fadhil died, the captain returned to the ship, and he ordered the body to be buried at sea. In the subsequent six months, three more Indonesians fell ill with beriberi. None died because the captain contacted a nearby fishing ship, which dispatched their onboard doctor, who administered an intravenous drip, presumably with B1 supplements, according to the surviving deckhands.
Through testimony provided by former crew members from the Wei Yu 18, The Outlaw Ocean Project identified multiple indicators of forced labor onboard the ships, including degrading living and working conditions, deprivation of medical treatment, physical abuse, wage withholding and more.
The Indonesians on board the Wei Yu 18 signed contracts that stipulated there would be no overtime, no sick leave, eighteen- to twenty-hour workdays, seven-day workweeks, and a $50 monthly food deduction. If the fishing vessel was not near a convenient port of repatriation, the contracts permitted captains to extend their stay on board indefinitely. Captains were also granted full discretion over reassigning crew members to alternate ships. Wages were to be paid not monthly to families but in full only after completion of the contract, a practice that is illegal in both the flag state and the deckhands’ country of origin.
For more information about the Wei Yu 18, please see the video about Fadhil’s experience, an Indonesian deckhand, and his brutal voyage on the Wei Yu 18; the story that was published in the Globe and Mail in collaboration with The Outlaw Ocean Project; the Discussion page tied to the owner of this ship; and the Bait-to-Plate page tracing catch from this ship to grocers in North America. The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable has not made the petition public. But The Outlaw Ocean Project has reviewed a copy of it.
If you have any questions about this matter, please email us. (media@theoutlawocean.com)