Crackdown to end slavery wins praise

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is praising the New Zealand Government’s efforts to stamp out slavery on fishing vessels.

Ian Urbina was in Auckland to present a talk yesterday about his 2015 New York Times series The Outlaw Ocean, covering the different types of lawlessness on the high seas.

‘‘One of the reasons I wanted to come to New Zealand is because of their involvement in the Oyang story, it’s pretty inspiring,’’ Urbina said.

In 2010, the 38-year-old Korean fishing boat Oyang 70 sank in calm conditions off the coast of Otago.

Six men died when the captain refused to cut loose a 120-tonne catch, causing the ship to roll and sink as the haul was brought in.

Following the incident, an investigation in 2011 revealed the Government had allowed fishermen from poor countries to be exploited in New Zealand waters, with many beaten and forced to work for days without rest.

This prompted the Government to make law changes which came into effect in 2016, requiring all vessels operating in New Zealand waters to follow the country’s laws.

Urbina said it was rare for a government to step up in the way New Zealand had following the exposure of abuse on the Oyang fishing vessels,

‘‘The issues weren’t affecting New Zealand citizens, they were doing something on the behalf of human rights in general.’’

He said the aim of his series of articles was to ‘‘challenge people’s perception of what lawlessness on the high seas means. Most people think of Somali pirates or slavery so I wanted to extend that scope wider to include things like the illegal arms trade and abuse of stowaways.’’

In the two years since his 2015 series was published, he said, there had been much change.

‘‘On the issues of sea slavery there’s been a lot of movement and changes.

‘‘There’s been action from the US state department on targeting Malaysian fishing boats and putting pressure on the Thai government to change how they track vessels in the South China Sea.’’

Urbina said media coverage of issues such as the conditions of fishermen who provide fish for pet food had created public awareness and put pressure on companies to act ethically.

‘‘I do think seafood is having its moment of supply chain transparency where there’s the motivation for companies to find better ways to check fishing vessels. The good guys will want a system where they can check the fishermen are working under fair conditions,’’ Urbina said.

Urbina believed countries such as New Zealand, the United States and Asian nations could be using their influence to implement better ways of checking fishing vessels were not using slave labour,

‘‘The US Government buys $29 million worth of tuna for school lunch programmes every year, that makes them a very big institutional buyer. So if they say you can’t sell us tuna unless you met this criteria, it could have a huge impact.’’

Urbina is working on writing a book based on the series which has already been snapped up for movie rights by Netflix.