Migrant fishers’ deaths at sea tied to unchecked captain power, study shows

The deaths of migrant fishers at sea are largely driven by structural labor and governance failures, rather than by safety or compliance issues alone, a new study shows.

Migrant sea workers, especially those recruited from low-wage Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, often experience violence and fatal abuse while aboard distant-water fishing vessels, those that operate in the seas outside any one country’s jurisdiction. The study, published Jan. 27 in the journal Maritime Studies, found that deaths of migrant fishers at sea are frequently the result of systemic working conditions that give boat captains control over basic living and survival conditions, making fatalities a predictable outcome rather than isolated incidents.

“In seeking a conceptual framework to analyse these deaths at sea, we employed necropolitics, as it captures how power operates through death and the threat of death as instruments of governance,” lead author Christina Stringer, director of the Centre for Research on Modern Slavery at the University of Auckland Business School, Aotearoa New Zealand, told Mongabay by email.

The paper is based on systematic analysis of 55 documented cases of Indonesian fishers who died or went missing on distant-water fishing vessels owned by or operating under the flags of China, Taiwan and South Korea.

Using the idea of “necropolitics,” which refers to the power to decide who lives and who dies, the authors found that ships operating far from shore can become isolated zones where captains effectively control crew members’ chances of survival by deciding whether sick workers get medical care, how food and water are distributed, and even how deaths are officially classified.

“At sea governance is minimal and this gives the captain and other senior officers/crew the licence to govern life, death and labour as they like with little oversight,” study co-author Sallie Yea, senior lecturer in human geography at Charles Sturt University in Australia, told Mongabay by email.

The researchers then distinguished the cases within the necropolitical framework into “active” versus “slow” deaths, showing that fatalities occur both through overt violence and through prolonged neglect (malnutrition, untreated illness, exhaustion). They added that examining deaths at sea can reveal how captains and fishing companies can render migrant fishers disposable by prioritizing profit over life. Their analysis also showed that the distinction of deaths was important in shaping appropriate and targeted interventions.

Alfred “Bubba” Cook, policy director at the NGO Sharks Pacific, who wasn’t involved in the study but reviewed it at Mongabay’s request, said its use of the necropolitics framework exposed clearly how unchecked captain authority reflects a broader lack of accountability in the fishing industry. He added meaningful change will likely require sustained public awareness and market pressure rather than academic research alone.

“As a broad perspective, I learned a new word [necropolitics] I wish I had never seen and that there should have never been a need for,” Cook, who has long advocated for fishing crew welfare, told Mongabay by email. “The fact that this word and concept exists is testament to the need to address the lack of accountability that exists across the fishing industry.”

The newly published paper said simply enforcing existing rules would not be enough to prevent deaths of migrant fishers, as deeper structural failures in global governance allowed crews to be treated as disposable with little accountability. It pointed to major legal and institutional gaps, such as weak investigations, unclear jurisdiction on the high seas, and limited adoption of the International Labour Organization’s Work in Fishing Convention (C188). These gaps enable companies and flag states to evade responsibility when workers die, the authors said.

They added that meaningful reform would require stronger cooperation between labor-sending countries, like Indonesia, and flag states, those under whose flags the vessels operate. They also called for measures that remove life-and-death decisions from captains’ discretion, including mandatory port calls for medical emergencies and independent autopsies to ensure transparency and justice for the families of those who die.

“For our recommendation to be feasible there needs to be a scaling up of international cooperation to monitor the world’s marine spaces, particularly open waters,” Yea wrote.

Cook noted that there’s still no binding global rule requiring fishing vessels to report crew deaths or ensure clear, independent investigations — an issue only partially addressed by new reporting provisions adopted by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission. Even then, these provisions will be limited to just this zone, and will not take effect until 2028, remaining ambiguous about accountability.

The Indonesian government has long recognized the vulnerability of its migrant fishers, and in 2022 issued a decree to improve protections for its citizens working on foreign fishing and commercial vessels. The regulation aligns labor standards with the ILO’s C188, introduces collective bargaining for migrant workers, and calls for a shared database among government agencies to better track and protect crew members.

Indonesia is also pursuing bilateral “sea-based” agreements to safeguard the rights of its citizens working on foreign-flagged fishing vessels as part of efforts to address labor abuse and modern slavery. Indonesia and Taiwan — which according to Greenpeace has one of the top five distant-water fishing fleets, and relies on migrant crews from Indonesia and the Philippines — have discussed a long-delayed agreement to protect fishers on distant-water vessels. But there’s been little progress on those discussions and no clear updates.

“Until the global seafood markets can decline sourcing from those vessels involved in these atrocities — which implies full supply chain traceability and transparency — then they will continue to operate (and kill crew — slowly or quickly) with impunity,” Cook said.

Follow Basten Gokkon on X to see his latest work via @bgokkon.

Citation:

Stringer, C. & Yea, S. (2026). Death and disposability of Indonesian migrant fishers at sea. Maritime Studies, 25. doi:10.1007/s40152-025-00469-2

See related:

‘Substantial’ transshipment reforms adopted at North Pacific fisheries summit

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