Waiting for Godot: The long wait for Indonesian fishers' rights at sea

Susilo, an Indonesian migrant fisher from Tegal in Central Java who works on a foreign fishing vessel, and Badu, an Indonesian fisher working on a domestic vessel, have almost certainly never heard of Godot - the character at the heart of Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play, Waiting for Godot. They have likely never heard of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention 188 (C188) on Work in Fishing, either.

But Indonesian nongovernmental organizations and trade unions that have spent the last decade advocating for stronger protections for fishers like Susilo and Badu - and demanding that Indonesia ratify C188 - know exactly how Vladimir and Estragon must have felt.

At the 2025 International Labor Day commemoration in Jakarta, standing before the leaders of Indonesia’s trade union confederations, President Prabowo Subianto committed to several labor reforms. Chief among them was the ratification of ILO Convention 188. As we approach the one-year anniversary of that public pledge, reputable online news outlets report there has been only one formal follow-up.

In late September 2025, the Manpower Ministry convened a high-level tripartite meeting on the fishing sector. Attendees included the manpower minister, the director general of capture fisheries (representing the marine affairs and fisheries minister), senior officials from relevant ministries, top leaders from trade unions and NGOs and representatives of the Indonesian Employers’ Association. On behalf of the participants, the minister and the director general publicly reaffirmed Indonesia’s commitment, taking a significant step forward by announcing a 2026 ratification timeframe.

Indonesia has several compelling reasons to expedite this process. First and foremost is the need to improve services and protections for Indonesian fishers. The 2024 ILO - BRIN study, “Understanding Working Conditions of Fishers in Indonesia”, estimates that 2.36 million people were employed in capture marine fishing in 2021 - roughly 1.3 percent of the working population. The survey uncovered serious systemic problems regarding recruitment, employment contracts, rest hours, social security and occupational safety.

For Indonesian migrant fishers on foreign vessels, the outlook is equally bleak. Even obtaining up-to-date, integrated official data on their numbers remains a major challenge - a red flag. According to the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Ministry (KP2MI), more than 32,000 Indonesian migrant fishers were placed under the "P-to-P" scheme between 2011 and 2025.

However, this figure accounts only for KP2MI’s data. The Transportation Ministry, also involved in placement, maintains its own separate records; the two ministries have yet to synchronize their data, let alone their operations. The true number of migrant fishers may well be double or triple the KP2MI findings.

However, this figure accounts only for KP2MI’s data. The Transportation Ministry, also involved in placement, maintains its own separate records; the two ministries have yet to synchronize their data, let alone their operations.

The true number of migrant fishers may well be double or triple the KP2MI findings. Without accurate data, it is nearly impossible to improve protections or prevent a recurrence of tragedies like the Long Xing 629 or Lu Huang Yuan Yu 117 cases.

Economic interests provide a second powerful incentive. According to the Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, in October 2025, Indonesia earned US$5.07 billion from fishery exports, with the United States, China, Japan and the European Union serving as the primary markets. International buyers, particularly in the EU and North America, are increasingly scrutinizing social and labor conditions within their supply chains.

The Indonesia - EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA), signed in September 2025, lists fisheries as a beneficiary sector but embeds labor standards as a condition of trade. To maintain access to a market worth billions, Indonesia must demonstrate its commitment to these standards through formal ratification.

Despite these incentives, the plan to ratify C188 seems to have stalled. What is holding it back? Throughout years of dialogue, the primary concern raised has been the "ratification cost" - the belief that Indonesia would be forced to immediately upgrade accommodation and safety equipment across its entire existing fleet. For small and medium operators, this is a legitimate concern.

However, a careful reading of the Convention reveals a "grandfather clause" regarding accommodation standards that significantly limits the financial impact on existing fleets. Under Annex III, detailed accommodation requirements apply in full only to "new" vessels - defined as those whose keel is laid on or after the date the Convention enters into force for that member state.

For existing vessels, Paragraph 2 of the Annex provides that a member state may, after consultation, apply these requirements only "when and insofar as it determines that this is reasonable and practicable." In other words, the existing Indonesian fleet would not be required to undergo wholesale upgrades upon ratification.

Furthermore, Paragraph 9 reinforces this gradual approach. It requires full compliance only when a vessel is newly constructed or when crew accommodation is entirely reconstructed. Compliance is required merely "to the extent practicable" when a vessel undergoes substantial alterations or changes its flag. In practice, costs are incurred gradually as the fleet modernizes - not as a sudden, crushing burden.

The second restraining factor is the observation that C188 currently has only 25 ratifying countries. Some ask: why hurry when we can wait for others to act?

The answer lies in Indonesia’s history as a regional trendsetter. Indonesia has historically promoted decent work without waiting for a global consensus. For example, Indonesia ratified ILO Convention 182 on Child Labor in March 2000 - just nine months after its adoption and before it had even entered into international force.

Indonesia also ratified Convention 187 on Occupational Safety through Presidential Regulation 34/2014 when only 18 percent of ILO members had done so. In 1999, Indonesia became the first country in the Asia-Pacific to ratify all eight core ILO conventions.

This leadership extends to the Law of the Sea. The 1957 Djuanda Declaration - which asserted that the waters between islands were integral parts of Indonesian territory - eventually became Part IV of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982. This move effectively doubled Indonesia’s sovereign territory and reshaped international law. More recently, Indonesia initiated the ASEAN Declaration on the Placement and Protection of Migrant Fishers in 2023.

In a few weeks, May Day will arrive. President Prabowo will undoubtedly offer fresh remarks for the occasion. But for Susilo, Badu and the millions of fishers whose names never appear in policy briefs, the wait continues.

The question is no longer whether ratifying Convention 188 is the right path; it is whether Indonesia still has the appetite to lead the world in promoting decent work at sea. Or whether, in the end, Godot is simply not coming.

The writer is ILO National Project Coordinator for the Ship to Shore Rights South‑East Asia: Safe Migration for Decent Work in the Blue Economy Project at the ILO Office for Indonesia and Timor-Leste. The views
expressed are personal.