[Report] Blurred Placement Flows: Human Rights Risks in the Recruitment of Indonesian Migrant Fishers in Japan-Linked Seafood Supply Chains
Human Rights Now (HRN) has published a new research report examining the recruitment and deployment system for Indonesian migrant fishers.
Download: Blurred_Placement_Flows_Migrant_Fishers_Report_2026.pdf (Japanese)
The fisheries industries of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and other countries rely heavily on Indonesian migrant workers. At the same time, serious human rights abuses in the distant-water fishing sector—including excessive working hours, wage theft, debt bondage, forced labor, and human trafficking—have been repeatedly documented.
While discussions of these issues often focus on abuses occurring at sea, this report examines how migrant workers’ vulnerability is shaped much earlier in the migration process. Focusing on recruitment, hiring, and deployment practices, the report investigates the structure, operation, and challenges of Indonesia’s migrant fisher recruitment system.
The research draws on interviews with Indonesian central government agencies, local labor offices (LPKs), Indonesian migrant worker placement companies (P3MIs), vocational training institutions (LPKs), fisheries vocational schools, fisheries-sector stakeholders, and migrant workers. Through these interviews, the report analyzes the recruitment and deployment pathways of Indonesian migrant fishers bound for Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and other destinations.
The findings reveal significant differences in recruitment-related cost structures across migration pathways. In particular, cases were identified in which workers seeking employment in South Korea were required to provide substantial financial guarantees or take out loans secured against family assets. These practices raise serious concerns from the perspective of the internationally recognized Employer Pays Principle (EPP).
The research also highlights the complexity of Indonesia’s recruitment and deployment governance framework. Oversight of recruitment and deployment agencies involves both the Ministry for the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (KP2MI) and the Ministry of Manpower. Because different categories of agencies are subject to different regulatory frameworks and supervisory authorities, interviewees noted that the system can be difficult to understand and navigate, even for recruitment and deployment agencies themselves.
Furthermore, the report identifies cases in which migrant fishers do not move directly to a single destination country, but instead follow a stepwise migration pathway. Some recruitment and deployment agencies described a strategy of first placing workers on Chinese or Taiwanese fishing vessels to gain experience before facilitating their movement to destinations perceived as offering better conditions, such as Japan or South Korea. These findings suggest that fishing labor markets in the region may not operate independently, but rather function as interconnected labor markets linked through the mobility of migrant workers.
The report also examines a fisheries-sector trainee reception model jointly implemented by Ishinomaki City in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, and West Java Province, Indonesia. This model provides an example of a recruitment system that does not require migrant workers to bear recruitment-related costs and that offers continuous support before and after migration. The report highlights this initiative as a promising practice from a migrant worker rights perspective.
Based on these findings, the report presents recommendations aimed at improving transparency in recruitment-related costs, strengthening oversight of recruitment and deployment actors, expanding workers’ access to rights education, and enhancing cooperation between sending and receiving countries and territories. It also calls on seafood companies to strengthen efforts to fulfill their responsibility to respect the human rights of migrant workers throughout their supply chains.