The ILO’s Ship to Shore Rights Southeast Asia Programme held a virtual National Programme Advisory Committee (NPAC) Meeting on 21 July. A tripartite-plus NPAC for Indonesia is a multi-stakeholders committee that provides technical, strategic, and policy guidance and oversight on the programme implementation at the country level. The NPAC will ensure that the programme remains aligned with national priorities and frameworks and responds to relevant political and policy changes.

Speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Manpower, Anwar Sanusi, Secretary General, emphasized the importance of the protection of Indonesian migrant fishers and workers in seafood processing sector. “Therefore, we need to work together across various, relevant ministries and broader stakeholders to achieve the goal and to more comply, one step at a time, with the ILO Convention No. 188 on Work in Fishing,” Sanusi said.

Insa Ewert, Programme Manager of the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam, welcomed the NPAC Meeting and reiterated EU’s commitment to support Indonesia for improving protection of workers in fishing and seafood processing sectors through Ship to Shore Rights Southeast Asia Programme.

Both representatives of EU and the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower chaired the meeting. They guided various representatives from the ministerial institutions, employers’ and workers’ organizations to review and adopt the proposed work plan which was developed by the Programme by taking into account the discussion processes in the earlier series of consultative meetings with relevant Indonesian stakeholders.

Albert Bonasahat, National Programme Coordinator of the Ship to Shore Rights Southeast Asia (SEA), said that the Programme focuses on the needs and priorities of Indonesia. “Therefore, the proposed work plan adopted in the NPAC emphasized the improvement of decent work in fishing and seafood processing sectors including for those migrant workers,” he concluded.

The adopted work plan include the following planning activities under the Shore Rights Southeast Asia programme:

• Providing technical supports for Indonesia to harmonize existing laws and policies. The technical supports aim to address policy gaps in Indonesia’s national laws on fishing sector, including the recent Omnibus law, and to clarify inter-ministerial and inter-agency coordination among various ministries and governments’ institutions in strengthening the enforcement and implementation of laws and regulations related to fishing and seafood processing sectors.
• Providing training and capacity building support to all stakeholders, aimed to improve the protection of Indonesian migrant fishers and to facilitate the greater involvement of Indonesia’s employers’ and workers’ organizations in the advocacy activities at regional level and to develop more cross-border cooperation and dialogues between Indonesia and countries of destinations.

Ship to Shore Rights South East Asia (SEA) Programme is a multi-country, multi-annual initiative of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN), implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The programme delivers technical assistance and support with the overall objective of promoting regular and safe labour migration among South-East Asian countries. The programme addresses the specific characteristics of work in the fishing and seafood processing sectors as well as the barriers and risks present in the migration system, which can lead to unsafe migration, decent work deficits, abuse and trafficking for forced labour.

More information on Ship to Shore Rights South East Asia can be found at www.shiptoshorerights.org