NGOs Warn That Sustainable Seafood Label May Hide High-Seas Labor Abuses

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) finds itself under fire again over its vetting standards, this time for allegedly overlooking the use of forced labor in overseas fisheries. A coalition of environmental and labor NGOs has called on MSC to acknowledge that its label may not be “fit for purpose” for evaluating labor standards in the complex, opaque seafood supply chain. 

Labor exploitation is a fact of life in a segment of the global fishing fleet, and its ubiquity and ease of concealment out on the high seas make it a challenge to exclude from the supply chain. At least 128,000 fishermen are subjected to forced labor conditions worldwide, according to conservative estimates by the International Labor Organization, and the…