"The Outlaw Ocean" By Ian Urbina through the lens of an anti-trafficking advocate
Human trafficking is typically associated with women and children sold as commodities for the commercial sex industry. Less known, however, is the frighteningly regular business practice of exploiting vulnerable people on fishing boats in international waters.
Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean reveals the life and death circumstances on the sea and how it relates to land dwellers not so far removed from the suffering of workers.
Urbina sets the reader in what feels like an adventure film; you have to pinch yourself every few pages and remember, “This is really happening.”
Most striking in this rich account of a mysterious and treacherous ocean world, he compassionately reveals the hidden costs behind seafood menus or inside the cheap filets of fish in fast food sandwiches.
Due to inadequate laws, lack of resources, and the inherent dangers of life in the water, Urbina reveals how the ocean is rife for criminal activity.
The lawlessness of international waters is problematic when attempting to hold someone accountable for the use of slavery. Illegal fishing operations take up registrations and flags of countries with the least legal inhibitors regarding business practices. The industry uses debt bondage or manning agencies to recruit workers, promising them a better life or a chance to travel the world and earn money.
In Thailand, the use of Cambodian slaves to procure cheap fish is rampant. While the government attempts to police fishing vessels with the goal of cracking down on human trafficking, their methods, so far, appear to be ineffective. They accept the interpretation of the bosun—the officer in charge of the crew—who tends to speak the language of the crew, while being intimately aligned with the goals of the officers.
Survivors who speak with Urbina report nightmarish abuses. Sick workers and stowaways are tossed overboard, men are raped on a whim, boys are beaten for disobedience or, worse, murdered for unsatisfactory work or alleged insubordination. When the dank, rat-infested bunks are seen as respite, and eating any insect-riddled bowl of muck feeds gnawing hunger, it becomes heartbreakingly easier for the reader to imagine why anyone would continue to obediently take orders and not risk escape to their equally violent homeland.
The illegal fishing industry brings in approximately $10 billion in sales.
Wages, however, are rarely ever paid to workers on vessels. Trafficked workers can be sold repeatedly to other boats; all the while, they are told disembarkment will lead into a better job or a new life lies just beyond the horizon.
Urbina chronicles one extreme, but, nonetheless, common story line of Lang Long who was trafficked to catch fish most likely sold to the U.S. as pet food or feed for animals raised for human consumption. The book describes how Long’s story leads to a job cleaning a monastery. Urbina describes with pessimism how Long was robbed of dignity and hope for an ordinary life in the name of the American dollar menu.
The Pulitzer Prize winning author offers informative, fascinating stories throughout the course of the book. Urbina includes the somewhat laughable tale of the establishment of the smallest country in the world known as the Principality of Sealand (a raised pirate radio station platform originally built to broadcast nearly banned, popular music like the Beatles and the Kinks). He exposes the impact of climate change on the already present challenges in the fishing industry and describes the longest marine chase of an illegal fishing vessel in history.
Don’t let the cover deceive— The Outlaw Ocean is for everyone.
Though I was familiar with the problems of overfishing before reading this book, I was completely unaware of the abuses of workers on the sea. I am grateful for the author’s immense courage to uncover what this $10 billion industry does not want us to see. The knowledge gained through Urbina’s work invites us to consider what we buy and see its influence over peace on earth and goodwill to humankind.
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
We make many daily, unconscious choices contributing to the suffering, breaking, and, often times, death of people who are trying to have what we have—an honest living, reasonable food choices, shelter, and dignity. Find out what it really takes to get toothfish (otherwise known as Chilean sea bass) on our plates and read The Outlaw Ocean for yourself.
About the Author
G Okuma started writing her dreams and fictional court cases at age 6. Her long-term collaborative relationship with words led her to the College of William & Mary and eventually to freelance writing. Aside from assisting clients with online content, she's learning to garden in the highland desert of the southwest, advocating for human and animal rights, writing letters to those seeking an act of friendship on Instagram (@dear.little.g), practicing and teaching yoga, and exploring art and life with her husband and two cats.