San Diego, US – Today, a group of Indonesian national fishers, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. court against a U.S. company, Bumble Bee Foods, under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), which offers survivors who have experienced labor, or human rights abuses a private right of action to sue US companies that knowingly sell the goods produced on the back of their abuse. 

The complaint details allegations of forced labour and human trafficking, emphasizing the individuals’ experiences including physical violence, emotional abuse, untreated life-threatening and deformity-causing injuries, debt bondage, excessive working hours, lack of payment, and financial threats against family members of workers, as they caught tuna that was sold by Bumble Bee in the US. 

The suit alleges that Bumble Bee Foods knew or should have known about the appalling conditions onboard the vessel but knowingly benefited from the forced labor practices and human trafficking of fishers. This could potentially be groundbreaking for the fishers bringing the lawsuit, and for the US court system in connecting harms on vessels to a US company, as this lawsuit is believed to be the first of its kind against the seafood industry in the US.

“It is never easy for individuals to go up against large, well-resourced, and influential corporations like Bumble Bee, but these men are. In their lawsuit, they share details of their painful and traumatic experiences in order to pursue justice. In doing so, they expose a broken system where thousands of other workers in the industrial fishing sector are trapped in conditions of human trafficking and forced labor in one of the most isolated workplaces on the planet. Today, I am optimistic that through this case, the fishers will get the justice they deserve and that corporations will know their power is not unmatched,” said Sari Heidenreich, Senior Human Rights Advisor for Greenpeace USA.

Globally, seafood amounts to more than a USD 350 billion industry.[1] Bumble Bee Foods’s US parent company, Bumble Bee Seafoods, boasts USD 1 billion in annual revenue, and is owned by one of the world’s top tuna traders, Taiwanese company Fong Chun Formosa (FCF). Despite these companies’ incredible annual revenue, a recent report by Greenpeace Southeast Asia and the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI) found that Indonesian migrant fishers onboard Taiwanese fishing vessels were reportedly promised salaries of USD 400-600 a month, which were often heavily deducted from or which they never received.[2]

The issues of human rights abuses and environmental destruction are two sides of a coin. On vessels that allegedly engage in forced labor against the workers, there are often overlapping illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities, including fishing in restricted areas or of restricted species, using destructive fishing gear, and overfishing. As fish stocks are dwindling globally, fishing vessels have to go farther out to sea and stay out for longer periods of time in order to bring in enough catch to stay profitable. Staying out at sea for months, and often years, at a time, creates conditions ripe for labor abuse and human trafficking.

“Thanks to the courage of these individuals, Bumble Bee Foods can no longer pretend they are doing enough to address the suffering experienced by those in their supply chain who contribute to their profits, nor evade their responsibility to protect these vulnerable workers and our oceans. The broader seafood and industrial fishing sector should also now be aware that they can’t continue to proceed with business as usual, engaging in or allowing human rights abuses to go unchecked. The time to put an end to these atrocities is now,” Arifsyah Nasution, Senior Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace Southeast Asia (Indonesia), and Greenpeace East Asia (Taipei office) stand in solidarity with the litigants. Investigations and supply chain research from Greenpeace Beyond Seafood fisheries campaigns and other NGOs were used by the litigants’ attorneys to support this complaint. The American, Indonesian, and Taiwanese players represent critical links in the global seafood supply chain, with Indonesia as the home of thousands of migrant fishers aboard industrial fishing vessels, the Taiwanese fleet as the second largest global fleet of distant water fishing vessels, and the US as the world’s largest seafood importer.

ENDS

Photos are available from the Greenpeace Media Library

Notes:

[1] Seafood Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By Type (Fish, Crustaceans, Mollusca, and Others), By Form (Fresh and Processed), By Distribution Channel (Supermarkets/Hypermarkets, Convenience Stores & Specialty Stores, Online Sales Channel, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2024-2032

[2] Greenpeace Southeast Asia and SBMI report Netting Profits, Risking Lives: The Unresolved Human and Environmental Exploitation at Sea (2024)

Contacts:

Vela Andapita, Global Communications Coordinator, Beyond Seafood campaign, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, +62 817 5759 449 (UTC+8), [email protected]

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0) 20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), [email protected]