Discrimination is a persistent risk throughout fisheries supply chains, on the grounds of nationality, migration status, gender, race, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and employment status. This is often intensified by the sector’s reliance on migrant labour and complex recruitment arrangements.
Crews are commonly recruited from a small number of labour-providing countries, creating hierarchies aboard where nationality determines pay, task allocation and treatment. Migrant fishers are paid less for equivalent work, given poorer living conditions, assigned more dangerous tasks and limited in their access to information, healthcare and remedy. Language barriers and dependence on employers for visas or accommodation increase vulnerability to exploitation. This is inconsistent with ILO principles on non-discrimination and equal remuneration, and it persists on FONC-registered vessels where weak oversight lets the disparities stand.
Women working in fisheries and seafood supply chains encounter occupational segregation, unequal opportunities and barriers to advancement, as well as sexual exploitation and harassment. Vessel design, facilities and workplace culture are rarely adapted for them, reinforcing structural inequality. Young workers and workers in non-standard employment arrangements face lower wages, reduced access to training and weaker labour protections. Child labour is a serious risk in some fisheries.
Discrimination also intersects with other risks including forced labour, violence and harassment, unequal pay and restricted access to grievance mechanisms – producing cumulative harm and increasing vulnerability to abuse.
Fishers are directly targeted through bullying, intimidation and economic exploitation such as wage theft and withheld pay. In isolated, hierarchical environments this stays hidden, particularly where fear of retaliation, loss of employment or exclusion from future work deters anyone from reporting it. At its most severe, the abuse meets forced labour indicators: restriction of movement, retention of identity documents, threats to future employment.
For more on discrimination, violence and harassment, and forced labour and human trafficking, see the Risks Across Transport guidance.