Revealed: Trafficked Asian and African migrant workers 'enslaved' on Irish fishing trawlers
Investigation reveals catalogue of abuses, including being confined to vessels unless given permission by their skippers to go on land, and being paid less than half the Irish minimum wage that would apply if they were legally employed.
Asian and African migrant workers are being routinely but illegally used as cheap labour on Irish fishing trawlers working out of some of the country's most popular tourist ports, an investigation has revealed.
A year-long investigation into the Irish prawn and whitefish sector has uncovered undocumented Ghanaian, Filipino, Egyptian and Indian fishermen manning boats in ports from Cork to Galway.
They have described a catalogue of abuses, including being confined to vessels unless given permission by their skippers to go on land, and being paid less than half the Irish minimum wage that would apply if they were legally employed.
They have also spoken of extreme sleep deprivation, having to work for days or nights on end with only a few hours' sleep, and with no proper rest days.
Some workers claim to have been deceived and appear to have been trafficked on to trawlers for labour exploitation, an abuse that would constitute a form of modern slavery.
The Irish government promotes its €850 million (HK$7.2 billion) a year seafood sector as a vital, sustainable and indigenous part of the economy. But the case of an undocumented Filipino fisherman, which came to the attention of the Irish authorities only by chance last month, has made the problems in the sector impossible to ignore.
