Forced Labor in Indonesia’s Fisheries Supply Chain

This reporting project investigates forced labor and systemic exploitation across Indonesia’s seafood supply chain, a sector central to global markets yet marked by persistent human rights abuses. Through in-depth field reporting, the project traces how exploitative labor practices are sustained from recruitment hubs along Java’s northern coast to fishing vessels, processing plants, and remote ports such as Dobo in the Aru Islands.

The investigation examines multiple interconnected layers of abuse. It documents how fishers are recruited through deceptive and coercive practices, including debt bondage and informal broker networks, some of which are alleged to involve state-linked actors. It also scrutinizes the use of maritime vocational schools as recruitment channels, where students are sent to fishing vessels under the guise of internships but face conditions resembling forced labor. In addition, the project exposes unsafe and exploitative working conditions in fish processing facilities, particularly cold storage and freezing units in Muara Baru and Bitung.

A key focus is the recurring cycle of violence, abandonment, and death of fishers in eastern Indonesia, especially in Dobo, where cases of missing, abandoned, or deceased crew members have been reported for years with limited accountability. By combining field interviews, document analysis, and open-source data such as vessel tracking and satellite imagery, the project aims to reveal how global seafood demand shifts economic risk onto workers’ bodies and lives.

The reporting seeks to provide accountability-driven journalism that connects local abuses to global supply chains, reaching both Indonesian audiences and international stakeholders concerned with labor rights and ethical sourcing.