key: cord-0884519-bgbismqo
authors: Vandergeest, Peter; Marschke, Melissa; MacDonnell, Mallory
title: Seafarers in Fishing: A year into the COVID-19 pandemic
date: 2021-09-15
journal: Mar Policy
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104796
sha: 2d75570dbd5a98abd0424fd451dfcc361a37f063
doc_id: 884519
cord_uid: bgbismqo

This paper builds on our earlier publication that examined COVID-19, instability and migrant fish workers in Asia during the initial six months of the pandemic. Drawing on interviews with port-based support organizations and various other international organizations, we outline how pre-existing structural marginalizations of seafarers in distant water fishing has made them particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of pandemic management policies for seafarers. We focus our analysis on obstacles to crew change and reduced access to crucial shore services. The basis of these longer term marginalizations includes the exclusion of fishing from the Maritime Labour Convention, the marginal status of fishing among global organizations concerned with seafarers, the dispersed ownership of fishing vessels compared to concentrated corporate ownership in shipping, lack of unionization, and frequent inaccessibility of consular assistance in fishing ports. We also highlight differences among important fishing ports, showing that repatriation of crew and access to shore services is the outcome of negotiation among a constellation of port-based actors.

Seafarers in distant water fishing are marginalized compared to seafarers in other sectors in ways that are long term and systematic. The COVID-19 pandemic has made these pre-existing marginalizations both more visible and more acute [1, 2] . The challenges with fish work at sea can be explained, in part, by the nature of fishing, including the often very long periods of isolation at sea, physically difficult work, and pressures to work extremely long days [3, 4] . But they are also the result of a series of other social and political marginalizations. These include the explicit exclusion of fish workers from the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) protections [5] and the related marginal status of seafarers in fishing in the mandates of institutions concerned with seafarer labour rights. Indeed, workers in fishing are often excluded from being defined as seafarers altogether, a practice we make a point of not adopting in this paper. Other reasons for marginalization are the relatively dispersed and less influential ownership of fishing vessels compared to the dominance of a few large global corporations in shipping; the related lack of unionization; and the sometimes distinct administrative status of fishing ports compared to ports devoted to shipping.

In this paper we focus on seafarers in distant water fisheries (i.e., not artisanal fisheries) to detail these marginalizations and describe the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. It builds on our earlier publication that examined COVID-19, instability and migrant fish workers in Asia during the initial six months of the pandemic [6] . The analysis presented in this paper leads to suggestions concerning policy approaches that could contribute to reducing the marginalization of seafarers in industrial fishing both during this time of COVID-19, and in the longer term. These include bringing seafarers in fishing fully under the umbrella of stronger labour protections such as those in the MLC of the International Labour Organization (ILO), and national labour laws, and increasing support for people and organizations who are currently key to providing support for seafarers in fishing on a port-by-port basis. In some cases, the treatment of seafarers in fishing might also be addressed by invoking the violation of basic UN human rights conventions.

A comparison with the situation of seafarers in shipping highlights pandemic problems that workers in these sectors have in common, including obstacles to crew changes, restrictions on access to shore services, and (going forward) unclear status with respect to vaccine access. At the same time, the fishing industry is distinct from shipping in ways that make the solutions pursued in shipping more difficult to implement. In addition to crew changes, we will highlight how workers in distant water fishing are particularly vulnerable to reduced access to shore services due to COVID-19 health restrictions that target ‗foreign' workers. These services are crucial for the wellbeing of seafarers in fishing, as they include access to: communication services for contacting families and seafarer support organizations, health facilities and medical care, meeting with workers from other vessels, legal services, and buying items that help to make life on fishing vessels bearable. Although we cannot yet assess disparities in access to vaccination, this may be an emerging problem where port states are not willing to allocate some of their limited supply of vaccine to ‗foreign' workers, especially fishing workers who visit ports infrequently and whose access to health care is not backed by widely ratified international conventions.

These arguments draw from research on workers in distant water fishing vessels that are owned and operated from East Asia, and within this, Taiwan. According to the latest data available [7] , Taiwan fishing vessels employed 20,232 migrant workers on about 1100 vessels registered to Taiwan in its distant water fisheries (DWF). Most workers are sourced from Southeast Asia, especially from Indonesia and the Philippines [7] . The majority of the Taiwanese distant water fleet is comprised of longliners who mostly target tuna (but also catch other large carnivorous, pelagic fish), while purse seiners and squid jiggers/saury lift-netters are also important. For reasons of access, this paper is based primarily on issues experienced by workers on longliners and squid/saury lift-netters.

Research for this paper was conducted during February to June 2021, a period when pandemic management policies had been in place for a year or more. Our sources of information include seventeen virtual meetings with key informants, with port-based organizations who support seafarers, with staff in international organizations, and with support organizations in the Indonesia and the Philippines. Meetings with port-based chaplains were especially important to this research: port chaplains interact with workers on a daily basis, seeking to identify issues and needs, and thus have a strong understanding of the specific issues experienced by fish workers. These individuals and their church-based organizations are also working with other support organizations, including migrant worker unions and NGOs, to develop practical strategies for supporting seafarers in fishing in the current policy environment.

One of the authors also conducted ten in-person interviews with workers, vessel owners, support organizations and companies in Taiwan between October 2020 and June 2021, as Taiwan did not impose significant limitations on in-person interaction until near the end of this time period. These interviews were conducted in Indonesian and Mandarin with the help of translators, and in some cases in English. This author also met with and observed the work of seafarer support organizations in Taiwan. We used industry newsletters and periodic internet searches and news alerts to track media, social media, and NGO reports and other coverage of these issues. These sources were mostly in English, but we employed research assistants with the requisite language skills to identify sources and dig up information in Mandarin for China and Taiwan, in Indonesian for sources based in that Indonesia, and in Spanish for cases involving vessels operating off the coast of Argentina and Uruguay. Finally, the research was informed by fieldwork conducted in Taiwan prior to the pandemic, in 2018 and 2019, which consisted of key informant interviews with workers and advocacy organizations, along with port observations. While research focused in the first instance on vessels operated from Taiwan, the analysis has global scope in that the port-based organizations are located around the world. The meetings with staff in international organizations and with support organizations in seafarers' home countries also encompassed issues facing seafarers on distant water fishing vessels generally, as well as those specific to Taiwan.

For the purposes of this paper, we do not systematically distinguish among different kinds of fishing vessels-such as longliners, squid jiggers, purse seiners, or trawlers, and differences within these based on vessel size and specific gear technologies. Future publications will explore these differences and their implications for seafarers in fishing. We also note that pandemic impacts on fishing management and seafarers in fishing are multifaceted and complex, including, for example, the suspension of observer programs, and uncertain access to government support. We focus on crew change and shore access because these were the issues that emerged as most important across our interviews.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, seafarers have been impacted in ways that are distinct from terrestrial workers. Long periods of confinement and unavoidable close in-person contact while at sea means that infections on vessels can spread rapidly, while isolation at sea makes it difficult to access appropriate health care. Crew change, in which seafarers whose contracts have ended are replaced with new crew, nearly ground to a halt in the first months of the pandemic [8] . Depending on estimates, anywhere between 200,000 and 400,000 seafarers were stranded at sea due to pandemic restrictions at various times [8, 9] . In addition, many ports imposed severe restrictions on shore access, preventing seafarers from accessing important services including health care, and communication with families. Shipping companies have produced lists of ports and their policies that show that a majority have either completely banned or severely restricted crew from entering or leaving the port country for the purpose of crew change [10, 11] . The policies listed on these sites are for shipping; some states exclude seafarers on fishing vessels from these policies, as discussed below.

Early in the pandemic, it was cruise ships that generated attention to seafarers. While most of the media and public attention was directed to unfortunate passengers who were isolated on vessels and sick with COVID-19, cruise ship workers were also at high risk, and often vectors for the virus on board vessels [12] . After passengers were finally able to disembark, workers were often left stranded on vessels, unable to return home due to the imposition of travel restrictionsestablishing a pattern for migrant workers at sea [13] .

As the pandemic continued, cargo shipping became an important concern. For shipping, considerable attention has been directed to slowdowns in supply chains resulting from port restrictions. The importance of shipping made headlines many times in the past year, most prominently when the 220,000 tonne Japanese-owned, Taiwanese operated, Panama-flagged container ship Ever Given disrupted global trade when it became wedged across the Suez canal for nearly a week in March 2021 [14, 15] . This incident helped to highlight how the shipping industry was struggling with ongoing constraints due to the pandemic [16] .

What failed to make international headlines was how the crew of the Ever Given, consisting of 26 Indian nationals, remained on the ship after it was impounded by Egyptian authorities entangled in a monetary dispute between the Suez Canal Authority and the Ever Given's Japanese owners. The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), the umbrella union for seafarers at a global scale, and the National Union of Seafarers in India, were in active contact with the crew to support workers, to ensure crew change happened as contracts ended, and to handle any health challenges the crew faced [17] . More generally, the increasing visibility of shipping has helped to draw attention to the situation of seafarers who operate these vessels, especially those who became stranded. Workers in the cruise ship and shipping sectors have important allies and policy instruments that helped draw attention to their situations, and this helps negotiate the challenges of repatriation and obtaining access to shore services [18] . The role of the ITF and the National Union of Seafarers in India in the Ever Given case described above is indicative.

Seafarers in fishing are often not included in these efforts. Fish workers are the most marginalized among seafarers, for reasons that we explain below. In some situations they are even excluded from being defined as seafarers and covered by policies concerning seafarers. The COVID-19 pandemic, and policies to manage the pandemic, have heightened this marginalization, amplifying the challenges of crew change and shore access. This will likely continue through the next phase of the pandemic given the stark disparities in access to vaccines on a global scale.

In this section we provide an outline of some of the structural reasons for why seafarers in fishing are marginalized compared to seafarers in other sectors, with a focus on comparing with work in shipping. This structural analysis has benefited from input from staff with concerned international organizations who deal with these problems on a regular basis.

During our virtual meetings with seafarer support organizations we heard many times that it was the workers on fishing boats who had the most difficult work, and needed the most attention.

Some of the reasons commonly given included the very long periods of time at sea compared to workers in shipping; vulnerability to abusive captains while at sea, very long working hours, occupational dangers, poor living conditions, and a lack of legal protections when vessels did come to port.

Past research on work in industrial fishing corroborate these observations. This research has found that work in fishing is exceptionally dangerous [19, 20] , that workers often experience physical and mental abuse, that they are often forced to work for 18 or 20 or even more hours a day. They also experience unsanitary living conditions, and may be subject to illegal deductions from their salaries [21, 22, 23] . Workers who decide to leave abusive or poor working conditions before the end of a contract need to pay for their return trip to their home country [24] . Workers in shipping can also experience poor working conditions [25, 26] , but according to seafarer support organizations the severity is much less that in fishing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new layers of problems for workers in fishing. Captains and company agents have been pressuring their workers to extend contracts when replacement crew are not available due to travel restrictions, and their access to shore services has often been severely restricted. While the nature of work in fishing partly explains these difficulties, a series of institutional reasons also help explain why seafarers who work in fishing are especially marginalized.

First, workers in fishing are explicitly excluded from the MLC [27], which has currently been ratified by 97 states including the major shipping states. The MLC provides seafarers with the right to be repatriated at no costs to themselves (Regulation 2.5 and associated guidelines), and specifies in considerable detail the various responsibilities and obligations for states in arranging for and paying for repatriation. This includes obligations on port states to facilitate repatriation of seafarers serving on ships that call at its ports or pass through its territorial waters, and to provide every possible practical assistance to stranded workers. The MLC also includes detailed provisions concerning access to health care on shore (Regulation 4.1) and access to shore-based facilities and services (Regulation 4.4), including access to consuls of their home state (Guideline B4.4.6). There is an 11 month maximum period of service according to provisions in the MLC.

The ILO Work in Fishing Convention (C188) [28] is intended to fill the gap created by the exclusion of fishing from the MLC, but has so far fallen well short. It has been ratified by just 18 states to date, including only Thailand in Asia, and only Argentina in South America. Notably, it has been ratified by South Africa and is thus in force in the important port of Cape Town where many vessels re-crew and go for maintenance. Compared to the MLC, provisions in C188 that could address problems faced by fish workers due to the pandemic are absent or weak. Article 21 on repatriation is much less detailed than the equivalent articles in the MLC, with obligations placed only on flag states to arrange and pay for repatriation if the fishing vessel owner fails to do so. It does not place any obligation on port states to facilitate repatriation or provide assistance.

Further, C188 does not provide for the right to access shore-based facilities, with one exception, which is the right to medical treatment ashore or to be taken ashore in a timely manner for treatment in the event of serious injury or illness. Below we describe cases where workers were not permitted to leave the vessels for health care on shore, resulting in the death of at least one worker. C188 does not specify a maximum period of service, and it is weaker than the MLC on welfare and human rights protections relevant to COVID-19 challenges and management. Compared to MLC, ILO C188 allows for more crowding of workers into less sleeping room space. It is less detailed with respect to standards for accommodation, sanitary, hospital, recreational and medical facilities, and with respect to measures to prevent disease and accidents. Unlike the MLC, ILO C188 does not require members who ratify the convention to provide access to port-based welfare and recreational facilities, access to consular services of the workers' state of nationality or residence, or access to due process under the law in foreign ports.

Second, and related to this, fishing is often positioned as supplementary to shipping and other maritime sectors within many key major international organizations, including the ILO, ITF and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Seafarers in fishing are thus either not included or are an add-on in actions concerning seafarers, especially if they are based in application of the MLC. An example is the ‗resolution concerning the implementation and practical application of the MLC' during the COVID-19 pandemic, adopted at a meeting of the Special Tripartite Committee on the MLC, April 19-23 (2021) . This resolution calls on states to take steps to ensure that seafarers continue to be able to travel to and from their home to place of employment, and have access to shore services, citing relevant provisions in the MLC. It does not mention seafarers in fishing. ITF guidance (as of June 2021) [29] for seafarers concerning crew change, repatriations, and access to shore services, as well as other rights, does not mention fishing, and refers to the MLC which excludes seafarers in fisheries.

In practice, this exclusion is partly counter-acted through the way that some governments and port authorities do not distinguish among seafarers in policies on crew change and shore access. An example is South Africa and its important fishing port of Cape Town: the South Africa Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) has jurisdiction with respect to all port and seafarers, including those oriented to fishing vessels, although it is under the Ministry of Transport [30] . In addition, international organizations such as the IMO and the ILO also sometimes make a point of including fish workers in calls and statements regarding designating seafarers as essential workers, exempting crew from travel restrictions for the purpose of crew change, or ensuring that seafarers have access to health care [31, 32] .

At the same time, some governments distinguish among maritime workers in ways that significantly reduce rights available to workers in fishing. Singapore, a key jurisdiction for supplies and for crew change, is an example. Fishing vessels do not go to the main shipping port, but the Jurong Fishery Port, which is under the jurisdiction of the Singapore Food Agency, rather than the Maritime and Port Authority. Workers who arrive in this port are not covered by Singapore's Merchant Shipping Act (2014) [33] , which implements the provisions in the Maritime Labour Convention. The Act does not explicitly exclude fishing from its scope, but it is applied only in the jurisdiction of the Maritime and Port Authority. According to Singaporean support organizations, workers in fishing are not legally seafarers in Singapore, and as a result the support organizations have experienced many administrative hurdles to setting up a seafarer support center in the Jurong Fishery Port. Taiwan, too, excludes fisheries workers from its' Seafarers Act (Article 3) [34] . We have not yet systematically investigated which governments J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f and port authorities do or do not exclude workers on fishing boats from policies concerning seafarers who are covered by the MLC, as this needs to be determined on a port-by-port basis, and the information can difficult to find. We do know that most of the support organizations and staff are aware of this problem for fisheries workers.

Third, ownership of most fishing vessels is dispersed among many companies based in a large number of fishing ports. This compares to shipping where a few shipping companies own most of the vessels. These large shipping companies are able to arrange for crew changes by means such as chartering flights [35] . Many fishing companies, by contrast, do not have the resources nor the global reach necessary to arrange for crew changes in the face of travel restrictions. Dispersed and sometimes opaque ownership also makes it difficult to hold owners and their portbased agents responsible for abuses, including those tied to pandemic management. There is considerable corporate concentration in the seafood processing sector, which has provoked discussion of supply chain transparency around labour issues, but our research has not revealed instances where this translates into corporate involvement in addressing the issues experienced by the workers due to the pandemic.

Fourth, unionization rates are an indicator of how seafarers in fishing are organizationally marginalized in relation to other seafarers. In shipping much of the labour force on vessels is unionized, although some of the unions may not be entirely independent of government influence. The ITF is the main union at a global scale; about half of all seafarers are either represented directly by the ITF or by unions affiliated with the ITF [36] . Union agreements and standards are monitored by ITF inspectors who are located in 120 -ITF ports‖ in 57 countries globally [36, 37] . These ITF inspectors can negotiate on behalf of seafarers with employers. The ITF also represents seafarers in international forums such as those organized by the ILO. In contrast, relatively few workers in fishing are unionized. We should add that unions in some ports provide important support for workers in fishing, and migrant worker organizations based in sending countries sometimes identify as unions, as do some port-based fish worker organizations. Examples of the former include SBMI in Indonesia [38] , and Migrante International [39] in the Philippines, although the latter identifies as an alliance of grassroots migrant organizations, not as a union. But many of the ports we investigated were not -ITF ports‖, and during our interviews we often heard that local ITF inspectors did not get involved in supporting non-unionized workers in fisheries.

Fifth, key fishing ports are often smaller than shipping ports, located in countries and regions that do not have easy access to resources such as consular facilities or seafarer unions. For example, the 2021 U.S. Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report on Taiwan observes that only nine of the 32 international ports have Taiwan Fisheries Agency inspectors [40] , and adds that observers have noted that the inspectors' mandates are mostly restricted to detecting environmental abuses, rather than labour abuses. Our interviews with port organizations confirmed that flag state consular assistance for workers on fishing vessels was difficult to access in smaller ports and in countries such as Uruguay (Montevideo), and Mauritius (Port Louis). Cape Town (South Africa) is an exception, important because many Asia-based vessels go there for crew changes and maintenance. Consular staff for home countries for workers --Indonesia and the Philippines -were helpful in some ports, but also not accessible in others.

Several other characteristics of fishing further contribute to the marginalization of fishing seafarers. Workers in fishing are often at sea for much longer than workers in shipping. C188 has no provision regarding frequency of access to ports. Workers who are isolated at sea for long periods are especially vulnerable to captains and supervisors. Seafarer support staff indicated to us that they cautioned workers to be careful in negotiating their problems with captains or port agents, because once at sea, it would be hard to verify retributions. In the context of COVID-19, this vulnerability makes it risky for workers to resist captains who pressure them to extend contracts so that fishing vessels are not sitting idle in port waiting for sufficient crew.

Finally, these conditions are heightened by the way that public authorities understand workers on fishing vessels to be a potential source of infection. While it is unlikely that a vessel that has been at sea for many months will bring COVID-19 across international borders to ports, this has not stopped public health and port authorities in many ports (though not all) from seeing these workers as a health threat. This can be a spillover from the way that migrant workers who are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection have been portrayed by governments and media as threats to public health, and thus been subjected to stronger restrictions than the rest of the population [41] including in Taiwan [42] . The combination of seaports as border crossings and anti-migrant worker racism has sometimes led to extreme policies that restrict the movement of migrant workers in fishing while in port.

In this section we illustrate how crew change and shore access have become increasingly pressing issues for seafarers in fishing, drawing from our interviews and analysis of media coverage as described above.

Crew change on fishing vessels is complex, as fishing vessels often do not visit ports for extended periods of time, use seaports that may not be major transit points for air travel, and employ workers from multiple countries. In early 2020, many countries effectively stopped cross-border travel via both airports and seaports, some more so than others [1, 8] . Countries whose COVID-19 strategies have been oriented to keeping the virus out completely have been particularly strict, which includes most South Pacific Island countries [43] , and China [44] . Crew change has also been made difficult by the lack of international flights, and frequent lastminute cancellation of flights. As mentioned above, large transnational shipping companies have responded by chartering flights to accomplish crew change [47] . This does not appear to be the case in fishing for vessels owned and operated from Taiwan, although some companies based in Europe have turned to chartering flights [48] .

For the Taiwan-based distant water fisheries, important ports for crew change vis air travel include Kaohsiung and other ports in Taiwan, Cape Town (South Africa) and Singapore. Crew change may also be arranged through other fishing ports including those in the Seychelles and Mauritius. Crew changes in the Southwest Pacific have been achieved by both air or sea vessels [49] , while some vessels may pick up workers directly from the Philippines and Indonesia.

Vessels are sometimes crewed through multiple ports: for example, Taiwanese vessels heading towards the Falkland Islands to fish for squid may start with a skeletal crew from the port of Kaohsiung (Taiwan) and pick up the bulk of its crew on a stopover in Cape Town (South Africa) prior to reaching the squid fishing grounds. Both Taiwan and South Africa have implemented strict testing and quarantining requirements that need to be followed upon arrival in airports, before getting onto a fishing vessel.

Fishing companies have sought to solve problems with crew change in various ways. For example, according to a support organization in Indonesia, some workers who have recently returned home report that they were transferred from fishing vessels operating in the Indian Ocean to Singapore by shipping vessels. From Singapore they were moved by vessel again to nearby ports in Indonesia (Batam, which is a short ferry ride from Singapore), which then enabled them to fly domestically to Jakarta (Indonesia). Prior to COVID-19, workers would fly between Jakarta and Singapore. In key ports where vessels often stop for recrewing (e.g., ports in Taiwan or South Africa), our informants mentioned crew consolidation as another strategy for reducing the impact of crew shortages. Companies with several ships in port move workers around so that some of their ships will have a full crew, leaving others to wait for additional crew to arrive and hopefully pass through testing and quarantine protocols. Support organizations in Indonesia mentioned that when workers are moved among vessels, families (some of whom follow their family members through vessel tracking websites) can lose track of the vessels on which their family members are working.

In Taiwan, the government imposed strict border controls in the initial months of the pandemic, which only began to be loosened in June 2020 [50] . To gain entry, migrant workers needed to show a negative COVID-19 PRC test within 72 hours of departure for Taiwan. This was followed by a 14-day government regulated quarantine and further testing. Quarantine is carefully monitored, and the penalties for breaking quarantine are stiff. For example, on November 13, 2020, a Filipino fish worker left the hotel quarantine room in Kaohsiung for 8 seconds to place an item in front of another quarantine room for a friend. This was caught on security video, and on December 7, 2020, the fish worker was charged USD 3,500 USD [51] . Industrial fish workers earn a minimum wage of USD 450 / month, prior to deductions. This case was not unique: between November 1 and December 5, 2020, nine other foreign fish workers in Kaohsiung were fined for breaking quarantine rules, although the amount of their fines is not known [51] .

Migrant workers enter Taiwan subject to these protocols, although restrictions on migrant workers have ebbed and flowed. In December 2020, the Taiwanese government temporarily suspended entry of all Indonesian workers [53] , in response to the number of positive tests among Indonesian workers arriving in Taiwan. The restrictions severely impacted the fishing industry and workers, with many being stuck at port waiting for boats to leave. By January 2021, Taiwan's Center for Disease Control (CDC) website tracking COVID-19 cases was showing positive cases among arriving Indonesian workers, indicating that this suspension was lifted [52] . By May 2021, in response to the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the community (prior to this almost all cases were linked to travel), the government banned all nonnationals not holding residency permits from entry, meaning that DWF workers could no longer go to Taiwan to board the vessels on which they worked [54] . This restriction is still in effect as of the time of writing [55] .

South Africa permits crew change for seafarers, in a policy issued in October 2020 that encompasses vessels in all major ports including Cape Town [56] . The policy mentions shipping, not fishing, but to our knowledge it encompasses all seafarers on foreign fishing vessels. New crew (‗signing on') arriving from abroad must either produce evidence of a negative PCR test, or quarantine for 7 days at their own expense, which is not always covered by the fishing company or local agents, according to our interviews. ‗Signing off' crew (leaving vessels to return home) are not subject to these requirements if they have not visited a foreign port in the previous ten days, which would be the case for most fishing vessels.

In practice, there are significant challenges to crew change in Cape Town. The Stella Maris Cape Town newsletter gives examples of workers who were forced to stay either on vessels or in quarantine hotels due to the cancellation of flights during the period January to June 2021 [56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62] . There were numerous cases of workers paying their own expenses in quarantine hotels. Port chaplains, the local Filipino community, and the Taiwanese Liaison Office have intervened to assist these workers, to help workers manage the expenses of the hotels, but even more importantly to arrange for flights home, often many weeks after the completion of contracts. Cape Town is one of the few ports where the equivalent of a Taiwan consulate is readily accessible, and Taiwan staff are reported to be responsive when approached by seafarer support organizations. Testing of arriving crew has led to further challenges in Cape Town. We were told that if any member of a group of crew arriving from the Philippines tested positive, the entire group was sent back. One vessel reportedly had four separate groups of Filipino workers turned back, in each case because one or more of the men tested positive.

Among the other fishing ports that we investigated, the pattern was either to not permit crew changes at all for foreign crew (e.g., Argentina, Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Mauritius); or to allow changes but with often unwieldy testing and quarantine requirements (e.g. Montevideo, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, Singapore) [11, 63] . For example, Montevideo, according to shipping websites, allows for crew change subject to strict regulations regarding testing and direct transportation; however, flights to Uruguay are limited. This port was mentioned by our informants for a widely publicized case involving 17 Filipino seafarers stranded for over two months on a Chinese fishing vessel [64] . Support organizations in Montevideo and in the Philippines were eventually able to arrange for repatriation by pressuring and negotiating with company agents and with the Philippine Embassy in Montevideo.

According to shipping websites, Mauritius does not allow for crew change. However, the portbased support organization discussed cases of workers arriving by plane and being placed in quarantine --an example of how official policy and practice may differ, and why it is important to understand the situation on a port-by-port basis. China employs a large number of workers from Indonesia on their fishing vessels, but as of the writing of this article, China's approach was to allow only a few designated ports to decide on foreign crew change policy for shipping [11, 45] . Our current information is that crew change for fishing vessels is not permitted, with the possible exception of Zhoushan [46] .

Seychelles is among the more open ports, permitting crew change for fishing vessels since early in the pandemic subject to the usual procedures including temperature checks and testing. It experienced a major outbreak among crew arriving from Africa to work on Spanish fishing vessels during June-July of 2020. But as of the writing of this article, the government continues to allow travel for crew changes, and has even started to vaccinate foreign workers on fishing vessels with some of their surplus vaccines, citing the importance of the fishing industry to their economic well-being.

Because crew change has become very difficult for many vessels, seafarers are being pressured to extend their contracts. Coerced extensions can be highly detrimental for the welfare of crew who are physically and mentally exhausted by the end of a contract. As an example: 11 Filipino crew on the Taiwanese vessel, the Feng Ya 11 [61] , were finishing a three year contract when the pandemic hit. They were asked to extend their contract, and months later were set to disembark. When they arrived in Cape Town in April their flights were cancelled even as the boat captain and chief engineer were able to fly home. A new captain flew into Cape Town, asking these men to extend their contracts for yet another year. They refused, and in doing so were told by the various crewing agencies involved that they would have to pay for their own flights home. We do not know how this case was resolved--the vessel left Cape Town in late May. This particular vessel had been fishing in the Atlantic Ocean for some years, occasionally visiting ports in West Africa prior to its six week stint in Cape Town [65] .

Undoubtedly crew change during the pandemic has become complex. Overall, official policy and actual practice are not always entirely consistent and clear, and there is often some fluidity in how restrictions are practiced, even while borders hardened. Both shipping and fishing industries have experienced major problems, but shipping companies have more resources to accomplish crew change, as well as more opportunities for crew change as vessels move in and out of different ports on a regular basis [18] . The stress of delays in crew change and forced contract extensions on fishing vessels is compounded by the way that their work is physically and mentally more draining than work on shipping vessels, as almost every port chaplain with whom we talked emphasized. In individual cases, these problems might be attributed to particular individuals--captains, vessel owners and agents, health authorities, and so on. We have argued that the underlying reasons are more systemic. In the next section we will explain how these systemic problems affect access to shore services.

Workers in distant water fisheries are often at sea for periods lasting many months, sometimes as long as a year or more according to our interviews. Access to shore services during infrequent port visits are thus crucial for mental and physical health, and for access to help where workers are having problems. These services include wifi for communication with family, access to medical care, access to religious services include port chaplains and mosques, access to seafarer support organizations (drop-in centers, unions, migrant worker support organizations in port or home countries) who can help with problems; socialization with workers on other vessels, shopping for items not available on the vessels, and recreation. As we mentioned above, governments who have ratified the MLC have committed to providing this access to seafarers in J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f shipping, but in fishing C188 is not widely ratified nor does it provide for shore access other than for emergency medical care.

As the pandemic has moved through multiples waves, seafarers in fisheries have been confined to their fishing vessels while in port, or had their access to many shore services highly restricted. Because seaports are border crossings for vessels flagged to states other than the port state, they are often subject to the same restrictive pandemic travel policies as airports. These restrictions are imposed by governments and port authorities who are concerned that migrant workers on fishing vessels are potential sources of infection. But in some cases they are also imposed by captains and company agents who are concerned that their workers could be exposed to COVID-19 while on shore.

The shipping websites that list policies on crew change for shipping companies also give information on shore access. Although this information is directed toward cargo and cruise ship seafarers, in some cases this encompasses all seafarers including those in fishing. These websites, plus our research on policies specific to fishing vessels, show that bans on workers leaving vessels are widespread and include many key fishing ports, including all ports in China (with some possible exceptions based on port status), many Pacific Island countries, Mauritius (Port Louis), and Singapore (Port Jurong, with highly regulated exceptions for moving crew between the airport and vessels). More extreme restrictions are not universal, however, as some port authorities have allowed some shore access, contingent on following local COVID-19 protocols, and excluding periods when countries go into lockdown due to community outbreaks of COVID-19. These include ports in Taiwan, Cape Town in South Africa, and Port Victoria in the Seychelles (see Figure 1 , on how the port in Kaohsiung was posted as of June 2021).

A related trend is that some vessels are staying at sea longer, either avoiding or unable to enter ports, in order to avoid potential exposures to COVID-19 or due to port-based restrictions on foreign vessels. Taiwan vessels have reportedly even avoided entering ports in Taiwan. In March the Taiwanese media reported that the Indonesian Minister of Manpower had expressed concern for 400 seafarers who were stranded at sea due to Taiwan's COVID-19 border controls [66] .

Information concerning shore access provided by the shipping websites do not reveal how shore access is often locally negotiated among port-based actors. Every port chaplain with whom we talked described how their access to fish workers was mediated through a constellation of local actors, each interpreting policies in ways that sometimes facilitated and sometimes blocked worker access to shore services, and their access to workers. In ports that did allow for access to shore services, it was company agents or captains who often restricted this access for workers. Their restrictions could be linked to port protocols, but also their understanding of the risk shore access posed to their fishing operations. In at least one port, support organizations reported that company agents had instructed guards to stop workers from leaving the immediate dock area. We expect that they would be more likely to do so in countries with higher rates of COVID-19 transmission, such as South Africa (i.e., Cape Town).

Organizations that worked to facilitate access to shore services included local unions and NGOs. Although fish workers are generally not unionized, unions in other sectors were described as important allies in some ports (Mauritius, Seychelles, Singapore), but not involved or not helpful in other ports (Montevideo, Cape Town, Kaohsiung). ITF inspectors were absent in most fishing ports: the ITF website for information on inspectors shows no inspectors for South Africa, Uruguay, Mauritius, Madagascar, and only one for all of Taiwan. Seychelles and most Pacific Island countries are not listed. However, ITF affiliate unions were helpful in some ports. NGOs that support migrant workers are important in many ports, including Taiwan [66] , and in Singapore where they provide financial and other forms of support. While port authorities and police were mostly described as restricting seafarer access to shore services, in at least one port, a seafarer support organization was able to develop good relations with authorities and the police, and enlist their assistance (Seychelles).

Access to embassy or consular support was limited or non-existent in some ports (Mauritius, Montevideo), but more available in other ports. Even in ports like Cape Town where these services were more available, they were still missing for some important flag states and source states for workers, as we mention above. Finally, almost every port city has a resident Filipino community that is organized to provide support to Filipino seafarers, for example, by visiting workers in hospitals, providing food and other needs when in quarantine, and financial support for chaplains who were buying basic goods for seafarers who could not leave vessels to shop for themselves. We did not find similar support networks among port-based communities for other communities, such as those from Indonesia or Vietnam.

In some ports, policies are restrictive to the point of violating basic human rights. This includes not allowing workers with serious medical conditions to leave vessels for medical care, as discussed above. We were told about a vessel at port in Mauritius with several seriously ill crew members. They were refused access to medical care in Mauritius, and the vessel went to the Seychelles where they were able to go to a hospital. This was too late for one worker who died in the hospital there [interviews ; 60] . We heard about medications running out for chronic conditions like diabetes or hypertension. Injuries that are common to fishing work (cuts, strains) remained untreated. Mental health was also reported as severely affected: one port Chaplain observed how men would get very depressed upon hearing bad news about their families at port, exacerbated by extended quarantines and flight delays before being able to return home.

The lack of shore access has consequences beyond seafarer's inability to access services. Reduced use of shore services has contributed to a reduction in important shore-based facilities. Drop-in centers in ports important for seafarers in fishing are being shut down or now operate in a highly limited way. In Cape Town, the Mission to Seafarers (MTS) chaplain passed away in December from complications due to COVID-19 [67] . He was not replaced, and MTS stopped its funding for a center that five support organizations had used to offer various services to seafarers, including fish workers. This center has closed, but possibilities for a new center are now being explored [62] .

COVID-19 has created major problems for all seafarers, including significant obstacles for crew change and repatriation, along with access to essential shore services. We show in this paper how seafarers in global fishing have been especially affected by these issues, due to pre-existing J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f structural marginalizations. The problems experienced by seafarers in fishing due to the pandemic thus help reveal the long term and institutionalized ways that workers in fishing have been marginalized compared even to seafarers in other sectors. The modes of marginalization are multiple and complex, but taken together they demonstrate how work in fishing continues to be treated as exceptional in ways that justify the exclusion of workers from many basic labour and human rights afforded to other seafarers and to terrestrial workers.

COVID-19 is also revealing the limits of C188 as a way of addressing these problems. While C188 can be a good start for committing flag states to implementing regulations to provide for some basic standards on working conditions, it does not include provisions present in the MLC that are crucial to the well-being of seafarers. This suggests consideration of how protections in the MLC could be extended, or how fishing workers can be brought under the MLC. To some extent this can be done on a case-by-case, or port-by-port basis, as some countries and ports already include seafarers in fishing under policies for seafarers more broadly. But this can only happen in places where current policies are liberally interpreted. Another option would be to extend national labour law to fishing vessels where this is feasible.

The research further illustrates how important it is to address problems at multiple scales, including internationally. The ITF, ILO, and IMO are key organizations who have been supportive of seafarers in fishing at a global scale, but they are limited in their capacity to act by the lack of legal instruments that they can use as leverage, as well as their physical absence from many fishing ports. We have also shown that the marginalizations identified in this paper also need to be addressed on a port-by-port basis, where legal and institutional resources vary, and where informal practice may not always be consistent with formal policy. For example, it does not help to specify a role for flag state government officials (for example, C188, article 43) [28] , if flag state representatives are not accessible.

Port-based support organizations, including both religious organizations and NGOs who support migrant workers, are important for both understanding the problems faced by seafarers in fishing, and negotiating assistance for workers. Efforts seeking to improve working and living conditions for seafarers in fishing would do well to listen to and support these organizations. They often operate on very limited financial resources, as well as in a precarious legal status with respect to port or worker access.

Many of the cases we heard arguably violate basic international human rights principles, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [68] and other conventions intended to protect vulnerable groups, including the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (1990) [69] , and the non-binding Global Compact for Migration (2018) [70] . A key issue is that migrant workers in global fishing are effectively ‗foreigners' in port states, who need to cross borders to go on shore, where their access to rights and services may thus be limited. The MLC includes provisions designed to address this situation, but seafarers in fishing are excluded and C188 is not very helpful. This suggests that a human rights approach to some of the issues outlined in this paper could provide an alternative approach to negotiating fishing seafarer rights with relevant states, especially those policies, legal instruments, conventions and protocols concerning state obligations to migrant workers and non-status people within their national territories. This is the approach taken by the UK-based Human Rights at Sea. The systematic violations of the rights of migrant workers in fisheries revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic are such that even the UN Commission of Human Rights could become involved.

In this paper we have focused on how the existing marginalization of seafarers in global fishing has contributed to their vulnerability to COVID-19 policies restricting crew change and shore access. The analysis has implications for the future as well, both while the pandemic continues, and after the pandemic comes to an end. Vaccine access is quickly becoming another key problem. Because fishing vessels often spend many months at sea, access to vaccination when they do visit ports is becoming a pressing problem. Some countries (e.g., Seychelles--interviews, [71] ) have responded proactively by providing vaccination to seafarers in fishing. Others (e.g., South Africa [61] ) were refusing to vaccinate seafarers as of the writing of this paper, at least in fishing.

Even after the pandemic has ended, the marginalizations that have been made visible during the pandemic will continue to degrade the welfare and working conditions of crew in distant water fishing. Any effort to improve poor and unacceptable working conditions in fishing will need to address them in some fashion, in particular, the exclusion from the MLC and the current inability of C188 to compensate. We argue that seafarers in fishing should be equal with seafarers in other sectors, and hope that future policies will work toward addressing the current inequalities and injustices.

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Thanks to all those that we worked with us on this research, including Wendy Medina de Loera and Zhiming Sha. We also acknowledge the crucial support work of port chaplains and the many committed staff with seafarer and migrant worker organizations. We thank David Hammond Esq., Mina Chiang, the Scalabrini Fathers, the global Stella Maris network, along with other staff working to support fish workers in international organizations. Two anonymous reviewers provided invaluable critical comments on this paper. The research for this paper was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Grant numbers 435-2020-1304 and 430-2018-0990].

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.  Crew change and reduced access to shore services have been particularly challenging  Comparative analysis with seafarers in other sectors sheds insights into reasons for such marginalization  Enhanced labour protections are needed for workers in distance water fishing  A human rights approach to countering serious restrictions is worth considering