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"From time to time, Indonesian crew members, in particular, those aboard fishing vessels,
frequently faced some problems. They are trapped in modern slavery at sea," Fauziyah noted
during a web seminar on "Questioning Commitment of Multi-party in Protecting Indonesian Crew
Members on Foreign Fishing Vessel" here on Wednesday.

Indonesian crew members were largely faced with problems of fraud, salary suspension,
overtime work, and also physical and sexual harassment, the minister revealed.

Since several cases impacted Indonesian crew members on foreign-flagged fishing vessels, an
improvement in the governance mechanism for the deployment of vessel crew members is the
pressing need of the hour, according to Fauziyah.

Related news: Indonesia demands China's accountability for boat abuse The minister highlighted
the government's unwavering efforts to bring about an improvement through regulatory
accomplishment derived from Law No.18 of 2017 on the protection of Indonesian migrant
workers formed into the government regulation (PP) for deployment and protection of crew
members either working for commercial or fishing foreign-flagged vessels.

"We are waiting for the progress. The government regulation draft (RPP) for vessel crew member
protection is recently being proposed to the State Secretariat," Fauziyah stated.

Several cases of human rights violations involving Indonesian crew members took place due to
the initial process in the country as a part of the entire process or the crew member deployment
mechanism. "Some problematic points are the processes of granting permit for the company that
will deploy the crew members followed by the process of recruitment, data collection, training
activity, certification, and then supervision," she pointed out.

"This improvement necessitates synergy among ministries and institutions to realize better
governance for the deployment and protection of our migrant crew members," Fauziyah
affirmed.

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