Citation

Swartz W, Cisneros-Montemayor AM, Singh GG, Boutet P, Ota Y. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2021; 118(19): e2100341118.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, National Academy of Sciences)

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2100341118

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

McDonald et al. (1) argue that labor conditions in fisheries can be discerned from the movement and characteristics of fishing vessels. We recognize the authors' effort, yet have strong reservations regarding their 1) limited dataset, 2) assumptions, and 3) model validation. Forced labor is a serious human rights violation, and any scientific claims potentially informing policy must be considered with particular care to best promote efforts toward ending human terror and supporting survivors. We, therefore, urge that the authors consider how their efforts may misinform policy.

The authors create profiles from vessels reported to have committed labor abuses, search for similar profiles in a database of 16,000 vessels with available positioning (automatic identification system [AIS]) and associated data, and conclude that up to 4,200 vessels in "global" fishing fleets are "high risk" for labor abuse. First, of 193 labor abuse vessels identified by McDonald et al., only 58 used AIS and just 21 yield AIS profiles suitable for their analysis, implying that nearly 90% of their known cases are undetectable by AIS-based profiling as proposed...

Keywords: Human trafficking;

Language: en